Around 50 terrorists could be released early if the British government fails to enact new legislation

About 50 jailed terrorists could be released early without any parole board review of their risk unless the Government acted to lengthen their prison terms, the Justice Secretary revealed yesterday.

Robert Buckland is in a race against time to introduce emergency laws to retrospectively end their right to automatic release at the halfway point in their sentences before the first of them is due to be released on February 28.

In a statement on Thursday, he confirmed that 50 of the 224 terrorists currently in prison are entitled to early release like extremist Sudesh Amman, 20, who was shot dead in Streatham, south London, by police on Sunday after stabbing two members of the public just days after being freed from jail.

Mr Buckland is aiming to get the emergency legislation through Parliament by February 27 before Mohammed Zahir Khan, a 42-year-old Sunderland shopkeeper jailed in May 2018 for encouraging terrorism, is due for release halfway through his senence on February 28. Five more terrorists are due for release in March.

Mr Buckland said the bill was not “muscle-clenching” or a “knee-jerk reaction” to the Streatham attack on Sunday, or that at Fishmongers’ Hall at London Bridge in November where released terrorist Usman Khan murdered two young Cambridge graduates.

He said the Government’s plan to ensure those convicted of terror offence serve at least two-thirds of their sentences and are only released after a Parole Board review is in the interest of “public protection”. “It’s the first job of Government to get that right, and that’s what we’re doing,” he added.

Mr Buckland conceded that there may well be legal challenges, but he said the changes were “measured.” “I’m confident this is not just the legal thing to do, but it’s the right thing to do,” he said.

He said deradicalisation measures inside prisons had been “stepped up” in the last few years but he believed some prisoners weren’t “capable of rehabilitation.”

Source: Telegraph