Hate preacher Choudary to be freed from jail
ANJEM CHOUDARY, the notorious Islamist hate preacher, is to be released from jail next month despite a chilling warning from the justice minister that he remains “genuinely dangerous”.
Choudary, 51, is due to be freed after serving half of a 66-month prison sentence for encouraging Muslims to join Isil.
The Government said last night that it was powerless to prevent his release on licence. Rory Stewart, the prisons minister, admitted yesterday that the preacher was “a deeply pernicious, destabilising influence”, adding he was “somebody who is a genuinely dangerous person” who would be watched “very carefully”.
Choudary was leader of the proscribed terrorist group al-muhajiroun, whose followers included Khuram Butt, part of the London Bridge terror cell that murdered eight innocent bystanders in June last year.
Other disciples include Michael Adebolajo and Michael Adebowale, the killers of Fusilier Lee Rigby outside his barracks in south London in 2013.
At the time Choudary was jailed in 2016, he had been linked to 15 terror plots over 20 years and had connections with hundreds of British jihadists who had gone to Syria to fight.
David Videcette, a former detective with the anti-terror squad, who investigated the July 7 2005 suicide attacks in London, said: “Every plot I ever researched, someone in it was linked to Choudary.”
Lord Carlile, a former independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, said Choudary “knows how to play the system”, adding: “It is disturbing and worrying he will be back on the streets.”
Choudary, a trained solicitor, was sent to prison in September 2016 but having already spent five months on remand, he is entitled to be released. He will likely be tagged and placed in a “halfway house” with restrictions imposed on his use of the internet and on the people with whom he can mix. Security services are expected to keep him under surveillance.
His case highlights the problems faced by governments in dealing with Islamist extremists who receive short sentences for lesser offences but who are now due out of prison.
Mr Stewart told the London Evening Standard: “Even if they are not making bombs, they are a pernicious influence on the people they come into contact with and need to be kept away from them.”
A Ministry of Justice source said last night: “Choudary was given a determinate sentence, has served two years and will serve the remaining time on licence in the community. He will be monitored and tracked but he will technically be a free man.”
Choudary spent years goading the authorities before finally being jailed. He refused to condemn the 7/7 bombings, demanded Sharia law in Britain and once called for the Queen to wear a burka. Using his legal training he had, until 2016, managed to stay the right side of the law to avoid prosecution.