Shadow Justice Secretary Nick Timothy and the Henry Jackson Society have written to David Lammy demanding urgent answers over the release of al-Qaeda-linked terrorist associate Haroon Aswat from secure psychiatric detention. Aswat, 50, was discharged from Bethlem Royal Hospital in Bromley after completing treatment for schizoaffective disorder…
Timothy and the HJS say he has longstanding Islamist extremist links, including connections to al-Qaeda activity and the 7/7 London bombings, which killed 52 people. Police traced 20 calls made by the 7/7 suicide bombers, in the hours before their attacks, to a phone linked to him…
He was convicted in the US in 2015 for conspiring with Abu Hamza to set up a terrorist training camp in Oregon, sentenced to 20 years (later reduced), and deported to Britain in 2022. He was released despite counter-terrorism police assessing he still posed a national security risk, and despite a psychiatrist noting that “even when in a relatively stable mental state [Aswat] has continued to express violent extremist Islamic ideology.” Because his release fell under mental health law rather than the standard terrorist-offender framework, he did not undergo a full counter-terrorism risk assessment…
Timothy says the case shows safeguards flagged six years ago by Jonathan Hall KC in his 2020 Independent Review of MAPPA for Terrorist Risk Offenders may still be unfit for purpose. Lammy has been asked to clarify four things:
The case raises questions about whether the system can handle terrorist offenders whose cases fall between mental health and national security. Jonathan Hall raised these concerns years ago…
Read the full letter below:
Robert Jenrick on the Today programme:
“Can you now give a guarantee to your listeners this morning that no BBC presenter in the future will be exposed as a paedophile, as a number have been in the recent past? No, of course you can’t…”