Judge WARNED in 2012 that London Bridge attacker
should NOT be released from prison early
Usman Khan (inset) was convicted of terrorism in 2012. Main image: emergency response agencies during Friday's attack.
© Guilhem Baker/ Global Look Press
The violent extremist who killed two people in a terror attack in London on Friday had previously been described by a judge as a “serious jihadi” who should not be eligible for early release from prison.
Usman Khan was one of nine men jailed in February 2012 for plotting to bomb the London Stock Exchange and building a terrorist training camp.
Khan was sentenced to serve a minimum of eight years in prison and, when handing down the sentence, UK High Court judge Alan Wilkie said that the convicted terrorist should not be released from jail early.
In the aftermath of Friday’s attack, the London Metropolitan Police confirmed that the murderer was released on license in December 2018, less than 11 months before he killed two people in the stabbing spree.
During the 2012 sentencing Justice Wilkie singled out Khan and two of his co-conspirators as “more serious jihadis than the others” in the case.
“They were working to a long term agenda, no less deadly in its potential than the potential for damage and injury the subject of the short term intentions of the others. They were intent on obtaining training for themselves and others whom they would recruit and, as such, were working to a more ambitious and more serious jihadist agenda,” the judge said in his sentencing remarks.
In my judgment, these offenders would remain, even after a lengthy term of imprisonment, of such a significant risk that the public could not be adequately protected by their being managed on licence in the community,
subject to conditions, by reference to a preordained release date.
“The safety of the public in respect of these offenders can only adequately be protected if their release on licence is decided upon, at the earliest, at the conclusion of the minimum term which I fix today,” he added, while fixing a terrorism notification period of 30 years.
© Global Look Press
The judge’s prescient comments were reported by the BBC at the time and have resurfaced on social media following Khan’s murderous rampage on Friday.
Speaking at the scene of the deadly attack on Saturday, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson said that people convicted of terrorism offences should not be allowed out of prison early.
“I think that the practice of automatic, early release where you cut a sentence in half and let really serious, violent offenders out early simply isn’t working, and you’ve some very good evidence of how that isn’t working, I am afraid, with this case,” Johnson said.
To be blunt - I don't think jihadists, radicalized Muslims, should ever be allowed out of prison. It should be a crime, bordering on treason, to be a radicalized Muslim, and it should result in segregation from society until Islam is completely renounced, or they agree to return to an Islamic country and not try to re-enter Europe, after serving their full sentence for any other crimes they commit. This is the only way Europe will be safe from Islamic insanity.
London Bridge stabbing victim named:
25yo man who worked on same criminal
rehab workshop attacker had attended
London Bridge stabbing victim Jack Merritt © Facebook / Jack Merritt
A 25-year-old man stabbed to death by terrorist Usman Khan has been named as Cambridge graduate Jack Merritt, who worked to rehabilitate criminals like his killer.
On the day of his death, Merritt was coordinating a ‘Learning Together’ conference organized by Cambridge University academics. The conference aimed to bring together convicts and criminology students, to learn more about “stigma, marginalisation and the role of intergroup contact in reducing prejudice.”
Khan was also reportedly attending the conference, which was held at Fishmongers’ Hall, next to London Bridge. It is unclear whether he had been invited to speak – as some news reports suggested – or had turned up of his own accord.
Sometime during the scheduled storytelling and creative writing workshops, Khan’s rampage began. Merritt and another woman were stabbed to death, three others were injured, and Khan was subdued by members of the public on London Bridge - which reportedly included some of the convicts attending the workshop - before police officers shot him dead at point blank range. He wore a fake suicide vest under his jacket, and had reportedly threatened to “blow up” the conference building.
Merritt’s father described him in a tweet as a “beautiful spirit” and “champion for underdogs everywhere,” while colleagues paid tribute to his work with offenders.
Jack “was the sweetest, most caring and selfless individual I’ve ever met,” criminology lecturer Serena Wright said. Suffolk Law Centre Director Audrey Ludwig praised his “deep commitment to prisoner education and rehabilitation.”
“I ain’t no terrorist”
Said Terrorist on BBC
Khan himself has been on the wrong side of the law for over a decade. When his house was raided by counter-terrorism police in 2008, he took to the BBC to protest his innocence, declaring “I ain’t no terrorist.”
However, he was arrested two years later for plotting to blow up the London Stock Exchange, kill then-Mayor Boris Johnson, bomb a series of London pubs, and establish a terror training camp on family land in Kashmir. Described by a judge as a “serious jihadi,” he was sentenced in 2012 to an indeterminate stretch in prison, before his sentence was fixed at 16 years in 2013. Khan was automatically released on parole last December, against the advice of the original sentencing judge.
With Prime Minister Boris Johnson promising longer sentences for criminals, Merritt’s father has asked that his son’s death not be used to toughen up the UK’s justice system.
“My son, Jack, who was killed in this attack, would not wish his death to be used as the pretext for more draconian sentences or for detaining people unnecessarily,” he wrote on Saturday, in a since-deleted tweet.
Today, ISIS claimed responsibility for the terrorist attack on London Bridge. It might be true, or it might be a pathetic attempt to convince vulnerable people that they still exist.
It's a tragedy to lose such a greatly admired young man to a lunatic jihadist. But there are a few reasons for not taking his father's tweet seriously. His father described him as a champion for the underdogs. We all love champions for underdogs, however, is it right to call terrorists underdogs? Shouldn't their victims be called underdogs and deserve increased protection from them. Nobody goes out onto the streets of London expecting to be accosted by a knife-wielding lunatic.
It would be nice to know how many jihadists Jack Merritt turned away from their madness? Certainly not Usman Khan! I am quite certain that jihadists can only be turned away from their madness by being turned away from Islam. Radical Muslims and jihadists are a grave danger to those whom they call infidels, which includes all non-Muslims, and all Muslims not of the same sect as they, ie, Sunni, Shia, Wahabi, Druze, etc., etc.
Devout Muslims should not be allowed into Europe, and those who put Mohammed and Allah above the laws of the country in which they live, should be locked up, or kicked out. I know that's harsh, but I believe it will come to that sooner or later, and the later it is, the more blood will be spilled.
“I came to the absolute conviction that it is impossible…impossible…for any human being to read the biography of Mohammed and believe in it, and then emerge a psychologically and mentally healthy person.” - Syrian Psychiatrist Dr. Wafa Sultan
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