High Risk Khan
That was nickname of freed jihadi who carried out double murder at London’s Fishmongers’ Hall
A JIHADI who murdered two people in central London was known as ‘high risk Khan’, an inquest heard yesterday.
Security services believed that Usman Khan ‘might commit an attack’ after he served eight years in a maximum security prison for terror offences.
During his time at Whitemoor prison in Cambridgeshire, Khan tried to radicalise, bully and forcibly convert other prisoners.
He was in the top 0.1 per cent of the most dangerous prisoners in Britain, the inquest into the Fishmongers’ Hall killings was told. After his release on licence in December 2018, he was ordered to wear an electronic tag and strict controls were placed on his movements.
When Khan, 28, attended a workshop at his former jail in June 2019, he was escorted by two police officers. But five months later, anti-terrorism officers allowed him to travel by train without an escort from his lodgings in Stafford for a rehabilitation session at the Fishmongers’ Hall in London.
In an email to the event’s organisers, one officer wrote: ‘Unfortunately we won’t be in a position to send anyone on the train with Usman as this would require two people to travel and that cannot be justified.’
Armed with two knives, Khan fatally stabbed Cambridge graduates Jack Merritt, 25, and Saskia Jones, 23, before injuring three others at the event in November 2019. Minutes later he was shot dead by police on London Bridge.
Amy Ludlow, organiser of the Learning Together event at Fishmongers’ Hall, told the inquest that she knew he was a convicted terrorist, but was unaware about his continued desire for jihad. She said: ‘People
used to call him “high risk Khan” and he would travel to our learning sessions with a little yellow book that designated high risk.’
But she told how she was unaware Khan had been involved in ‘violent incidents, bullying, and serious disruption, including forced conversions’ while in jail.
She said: ‘Those sorts of behaviour are not compatible with Learning Together as a community. Had any of those behaviours manifested themselves, they would have been reported and if necessary we would have deselected his application.’
Before his release, Khan was allowed to work on Dr Ludlow’s educational programme and did so well that he was made a ‘peer mentor’.
Jonathan Hough QC, acting for the coroner, asked her: ‘Would it have changed anything if you were told he was plotting to set up a terrorist training camp in Pakistan for attacks against the UK?’
Dr Ludlow, of Cambridge University criminology department,
‘Allowed to travel without escort’
replied: ‘It would have concerned me as a relevant consideration for my security colleagues.’
Earlier, Reverend Paul Foster, Whitemoor prison’s chaplain, said Khan had engaged positively with rehabilitation programmes, but admitted it was possible he may have been ‘conned’ by him.
When asked if he was surprised to learn that spies had intelligence Khan ‘might commit an attack’ after his release, he replied: ‘That would be a surprise. If that intelligence is correct, he was obviously presenting himself in a way that was likely to deceive the likes of myself and others.’
The inquest at London’s Guildhall continues.