Authorities pass blame for attack
Isis claims role as security failings prompt questions
Britons looked for answers yesterday about how convicted terrorist Usman Khan was let out of prison early and able to use a conference for ex-offenders to launch a bloody attack.
He stabbed two people to death and wounded three others in London on Saturday.
Politicians sought to pin the blame elsewhere for a clear breakdown in the security system. Security officials last month had downgraded Britain’s terrorism threat level from “severe” to “substantial”.
Police said Khan was convicted in 2012 of terrorism offences and released in December 2018 “on licence”, which meant he had to meet conditions or face recall to prison. British media reported he was wearing an electronic ankle bracelet that allowed police to track him at the time of the attack.
The Mail on Sunday yesterday reported Khan had been banned from entering the capital under terms of his release — but probation bosses granted him an exemption to attend the ex-prisoners conference.
The Guardian reported opposition politicians took the Conservative Party to task at a television debate hours after the shootings for having reduced police numbers by more than 20,000 over the past nine years.
And the Telegraph reported Khan “hoodwinked” authorities, writing from prison seven years ago after his terror conviction that “now I am much more mature and want to live my life as a good Muslim and also a good citizen of Britain” and pleading to join a Home Office “deradicalisation course”.
Authorities seemed quick to blame “the system” rather than any one component for the failings.
The Parole Board said it had played no role in Khan’s early release but he “appears to have been released automatically on licence (as required by law), without ever being referred to the board”.
Neil Basu, of the Metropolitan Police counterterrorism squad, said yesterday the conditions of Khan’s release had been complied with.
The automatic release programme apparently means no agency was tasked with determining if Khan still believed in radical views or whether he took part in any “deradicalisation” programmes.
The former head of Britain’s National Counter Terrorism Security Office, Chris Phillips, said it was unreasonable to ask police and security services to keep the country safe while “letting convicted, known, radicalised jihadi criminals walk about our streets”.
Khan had been convicted as part of an al-Qaida linked group accused of plotting to target major sites including Parliament, the US Embassy and individuals including Prime Minister Boris Johnson, then the mayor of London, the dean of St Paul’s Cathedral in London and two rabbis. Khan and his accomplices had links to radical preacher Anjem Choudary, one of the highest-profile faces of radical Islam in Britain.
The Islamic State has claimed responsibility for Saturday’s attack, saying Khan was one of its fighters.
Johnson, who visited the scene yesterday said he had “long argued” it was a “mistake to allow serious and violent criminals to come out of prison early” and the criminal justice system “simply isn’t working”.