Ringleader let off with a CAUTION for violent extremism a year ago
RINGLEADER Khuram Butt was reported to police last year for violent extremism, but was only cautioned.
The chance to stop him before Saturday’s attack emerged as his mother called him ‘insane’. Fahmida Saif, 60, said she had repeatedly warned him against ‘getting involved with religious fanatics’.
Details also came to light of his key role in hate preacher Anjem Choudary’s London terror group al-Muhajiroun. Butt was reported several times to police and MI5, who classed him as not dangerous. The pair abused moderate Muslims outside Parliament following Lee Rigby’s killing.
Yesterday Dr Usama Hasan, of the antiextremist think-tank Quilliam, revealed he reported Butt to police and MI5 last July after a similar incident. ‘Kharum Butt verbally and physically assaulted me,’ he said, adding that Butt accused him of being a ‘government spy’.
He was arrested this January, six months later, but was let off with a caution.
Haras Rafiq, Quilliam’s chief executive, said: ‘It’s one thing when someone from the public reports an individual as a vio-
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lent extremist, but when experts who are involved in deradicalising jihadists report them, a caution is not enough.’
At the time last summer Butt had a job on the Tube with access to tunnels under Parliament – despite having been filmed in the TV documentary The Jihadis Next Door unfurling the IS flag in London.
Butt, a father of two, was friends with IS fighter Siddhartha Dhar – Jihadi Sid – who was filmed killing hostages in Syria.
It emerged yesterday that Butt attended Ummah Fitness in Ilford run by a terror suspect on an FBI watchlist. Sajeel Shahid, 41, a fellow al-Muhajiroun member, was accused of helping train the 7/7 bomb leader Mohammed Siddique Khan. The gym denied seeing ‘anything of concern’.
Butt’s wife Zahrah, 24, was said to be ‘cursing’ him. They were ‘not on good terms’ because of his extremist friends.
His mother told her brother, Shahid Rasool Dar, the whole family was furious. He said: ‘My sister is so angry. She told Kharum many times to get away from such bad people but he turned completely mad. His mother thinks he was not sane.’