Leveson ruling opened the door to early release
WHEN Usman Khan was jailed for 16 years in 2012, the judge ruled that the al-Qaeda-inspired jihadi could only be released if and when a parole board was convinced he no longer posed a threat to the public.
That so called “indeterminate sentence” intended to secure “imprisonment for public protection” could have meant the terrorist would not have been freed to launch Friday’s terror attack.
However, in 2013 – just over a year after Khan was jailed – Lord Justice Leveson, sitting with two other judges at the Court of Appeal, quashed that sentence.
They found the original trial judge had “wrongly characterised” Khan’s plans as more dangerous than some of the other defendants in his terror cell.
So, Khan was given a “determinate” 16-year sentence, making him eligible for release on licence in December last year.
The appeal case hinged on whether Khan and his two Stoke colleagues – Nazam Hussain, 26, and Mohammed Shahjahan, 27 – who wanted to follow Osama bin Laden’s example and set up a terrorist training camp abroad, posed as much of a risk to Britain as those defendants who plotted to detonate a pipe bomb at the London Stock Exchange.
The Crown Court judge was adamant Khan was a career terrorist. However, on appeal, Khan’s barristers successfully argued that Khan was not “more sophisticated”, but was merely “bigging up” his terrorist credentials.
The judges accepted their assertion that “fanciful plans” to build a terrorist camp in Kashmir meant they were not, unlike other defendants, planning attacks in the UK.
In the ruling, Mr Justice Leveson wrote that “the risk posed to the public could not be greater from those who were very much further away from realising their apparent goal than those who were far closer to doing so”.
It adds there was “no suggestion” Khan had been trained or was close to building the camp.
Mr Justice Leveson added that “there is an argument for concluding that anyone convicted of such an offence should be incentivised to demonstrate that he can safely be released; such a decision is then en better left to the parole board for or consideration proxi- imate in time to the date when release becomes possible.”
However, the parole board yesterday said that it had no involvement in Khan’s release and that he “appears to have been released automatically on licence” halfway through his sentence.
Mr Justice Leveson, sitting with Mr Justice Mitting and Mr Justice Sweeney, heard how Khan and the two others from the Stoke cell were recorded explaining that they did not want “to risk something petty like extremist posters” because “they had a higher priority”.
The court was told that the Stoke gang was thought “pre-eminent” and to have a leadership role, compared with the London and Cardiff groups they were working with.
The ruling notes how Khan “appeared to have memorised” an al Qaeda pipe bomb recipe contained in its Inspire publication.
The ruling also als shows that the judges were aware a that Khan “spoke “spoke in terms te as demonstrated that he was radicalised and described describe kuffars [nonbelievers] as ‘dogs’.” ‘d
They also heard how Khan Kha had a document m at his home with w the “structure, roles and responsibilities” of each member of the three terror cells. Their ruling includes reference from the original trial at Woolwich Crown C Court that t the “Stoke offence” o was a “longer-term “l and perhaps pe more sophisticated phi plan whic which involved the creati creation of a very significan nificant risk to public safety” safety”.
‘[Khan] appears s to have been released sed automatically on licence’