- Wednesday, April 24, 2024
By: Eastern Eye Staff
The British government will introduce emergency legislation to prevent convicted terrorists from being released automatically after serving half their sentences.
Justice Secretary Robert Buckland told lawmakers that the “appalling” Streatham incident called for “immediate action”.
The announcement came the day after an Islamic extremist, Sudesh Amman, who had recently been released from prison, stabbed two people in south London, before being shot dead by counter-terror officers.
The legislation, Buckland said, was aimed at putting an end to “terrorist offenders getting released automatically having served half of their sentence with no check or review”.
Notably, the move came at a time when reports cautioned that many terror convicts were set for “automatic release”. Considering “an unprecedented situation of severe gravity”, the legislation will apply to prisoners currently serving their terms, he added.
More than 70 terror convicts have been released in Britain so far, and at least 200 others are currently imprisoned.
Sources said the government was likely to consider a legislation to ensure close monitoring of extremists on release, and might order a review on whether the current sentences for terrorist offences are sufficient.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson said the country was “liberal” and “tolerant”, but “the idea of automatic early release for people who obviously continue to pose a threat to the public has come to the end of its useful life”.
Johnson added that deradicalisation was a “very, very difficult thing to do” and that he was concerned about the way convicted terrorists in prison were being handled.
“Do you detain them en bloc, in one group, and try to keep them together because that avoids them, as it were, infecting or passing the virus of their beliefs to others in jails, or do you disperse them and try to stop them re-infecting each other?” he wondered aloud.
The Parole Board for England and Wales welcomed the government’s move. In a statement, the board said it would not “direct the release of an offender unless [it is] satisfied, taking account of all the evidence, that detention is no longer necessary for the protection of the public”.
It noted that “proper assessment” was “vital” when it came to release of serious offenders.
Meanwhile, human rights group Liberty said the government’s actions were a “cause of increasing concern for our civil liberties”.
