Terrorism suspect linked to 7/7 bombings set to be released from prison

Telegraph

03-04-2025

A British terrorist linked to the 7/7 bombings is set to be freed despite remaining a 'risk to national security'.
Haroon Aswat, 50, who was jailed for 20 years for plotting to form an extremist training camp has been assessed by police as continuing to be a security risk.
However, a High Court judge has ruled that he can be released from a secure hospital after completing treatment for his mental ill health.
Mr Justice Jay said that the release of Aswat from his detention under the Mental Health Act was now expected in the 'relatively near future', enabling him to return to his family in Batley, West Yorks.
He was deported to the UK and held under a US arrest warrant, accused of attempting to set up a terrorist training camp in Oregon, US before 9/11 under the direction of the hate preacher Abu Hamza in 1999.
He was also said to have trained at a camp in Afghanistan in 2001, and stayed at an al-Qaeda safe house in Pakistan, where he met two 7/7 bombers.
In 2005, police traced 20 calls to a phone linked to Aswat made by the 7/7 bombers, hours before their attack left 52 dead and more than 800 injured in central London.
It took a decade for him to be sentenced because of various extradition and appeal hearings.
In 2014, he was extradited to the US, where he was sentenced to 20 years in prison in 2015 for supporting a foreign terrorist organisation. His 20-year jail term was cut to seven years because of time detained at Broadmoor Hospital.
Before his US release in 2022, Aswat told Dr Richard Taylor, a visiting psychiatrist: 'I am a terrorist.'
'No formal risk assessment'
Aswat has schizoaffective disorder. Symptoms can include unpredictable and aggressive behaviour.
Dr Taylor warned that Aswat might radicalise impressionable recruits.
On his return to the UK in late 2022, Aswat was detained at Bethlem Royal Hospital in south London. His move there, under provisions of the Mental Health Act, is understood to have been spurred by national security concerns.
However, on Tuesday, Mr Justice Jay ruled: 'The defendant's treatment has been effective. His release from detention is expected in the relatively near future. I understand he will return to his family in Yorkshire.'
Mr Justice Jay noted: 'No formal terrorist risk assessment has been carried out since the defendant's return here. The circumstances of his detention have precluded that.
'However, on the basis of the material which is available the defendant has been assessed by various police officers – including the senior officer dealing with this case – that he remains a risk to national security.'
The Tories said the case exposed a loophole in legislation preventing a full risk assessment that could enable his continued detention.
Chris Philp, the shadow home secretary, said: 'It is totally unacceptable that full risk assessments cannot be carried out. I call on the Government to urgently change the law. Those who pose a danger to the public should be taken off our streets. That's non-negotiable.'
Dr Taylor travelled to the US in the summer of 2022 to prepare a report on Aswat. The report states that in 2017 Aswat made remarks to prison staff in support of al-Qaeda and threatened violence towards them.
In 2022, he sent letters that made demands and death threats, seemingly motivated by a terrorist ideology.
'Violent extremism risk'
Dr Taylor concluded that he openly endorsed an extremist ideology, but there was no evidence Aswat was mentally ill.
However, he had had limited opportunity to address the extremist mindset and showed traits of glibness, superficial charm, charisma, intelligence and elements of manipulativeness and narcissism.
Even when mentally stable, he continued to express violent, extremist Islamic ideology, Dr Taylor found.
The diagnosis showed a schizoaffective disorder, with symptoms of unpredictable and aggressive behaviour.
Dr Taylor did not complete a full terrorist risk assessment, but identified 15 of the 22 relevant factors in the government's extreme risk guidance.
He concluded: 'There remains the risk of Islamic violent extremism motivated targeted terrorist offending behaviour given his threats to kill Jews, Christians and certain groups of Muslims.
'There is also a risk of him influencing other vulnerable individuals, as when he is in an abnormal mental state his religious extremist rhetoric is amplified by mental illness.'