Terror in Streatham
To his distraught mother, 20-year-old Sudesh Amman was a “polite, kind, lovely boy”, said Caroline Davies in The Guardian. But to the judge who jailed him – after he admitted 13 counts of possessing and distributing terrorist material in 2018 – he was a dangerous Islamist extremist whose declared “life goal” was to die a shahid (martyr). And to the armed undercover officers who last weekend were monitoring him on the streets of Streatham, south London, he was an “immediate and real threat to life they were forced to eliminate in front of panicked families and Sunday shoppers”. It is only thanks to their swift actions that a greater tragedy was prevented when Amman – who just ten days earlier had been released from Belmarsh high-security prison, halfway through a three-year sentence – grabbed a £3.99 ceramic knife from a Low Price Store and started attacking passers-by. He managed to stab a woman and man, causing them both serious injury, before officers shot him dead.
“We have, of course, been here before,” said Stephen Pollard in the Daily Express. Last November, 28-year-old Usman Khan – who, like Amman, was wearing a fake suicide vest – killed two people in an attack at London Bridge. He too had been automatically released halfway through a sentence for terrorist offences, under the same crazy rules that meant the parole board had no remit to make a judgment on any danger he posed. During the election campaign, Boris Johnson vowed to introduce longer sentences for terrorists. And this week, Robert Buckland, the Justice Secretary, promised to end automatic early release for both future offenders and the 220 convicted terror offenders who are already behind bars. They will be considered for release only once they have served two-thirds of their sentence, and with parole board approval. These moves are certain to be challenged by civil liberties groups, but keeping these people in jail for longer is “eminently sensible”, said the Daily Mail. Everyone deserves “a chance at redemption”, but not at the expense of the safety of the public.
Once again, we’re told that banging people up for longer is the answer, said Sean O’Grady in The Independent. It isn’t. Do you think the killers of Lee Rigby or the 7/7 bombers would be “deterred by longer sentencing, with or without parole”? It only postpones the moment that terrorists get out, determined to kill. The real problem lies in prison, said The Times. Not only was Amman not deradicalised in Belmarsh; he had his beliefs “affirmed” by fellow radicals, with whom he even “staged mock executions”. The real problem is that prison deradicalisation programmes are underfunded and poorly delivered, said Nazir Afzal in the New Statesman. Funding has been cut in recent years – an absurd false saving. By contrast, Denmark and Saudi Arabia have very successful deradicalisation programmes. “The lesson is to follow what works and resource it properly.”