In the aftermath of a knife attack claimed by the Islamic State jihadist group, the British government wants to toughen the law to prevent the automatic early release of those convicted of terrorism, as benefited by the perpetrator of the attack.
"We are going to introduce emergency legislation to end the automatic early release, without control or verification, of those convicted of terrorism having served half their sentence", Justice Minister Robert Buckland announced on Monday (February 3rd) to MPs. Their requests for early release can only be considered once they have completed two-thirds of their sentence and none will be released before the end of their sentence without the approval of the probation committee, the minister said.
Early Sunday afternoon, 20-year-old Sudesh Amman, who was wearing a dummy explosive vest, stabbed and injured a man in his 40s and a woman in his 50s on a shopping street in London district of Streatham, before being shot by the police. A third person, a woman in her 20s, was slightly injured by a shard of glass caused by law enforcement fire.
Second attack in two months
The assailant, who had just stolen the knife from a store, was released from prison in January after serving half his three-year sentence and four months in prison for possession and dissemination of jihadist content, according to the Minister of Justice. justice. It was the second such attack in two months in London. It led Prime Minister Boris Johnson to promise "Fundamental changes" in the treatment of perpetrators. "We must use all possible tools to ensure that this threat is neutralized"said his Minister of Justice in the House of Commons.
The government had previously announced tougher laws following an attack on the London Bridge in central London that killed two people in late November, perpetrated by an automatically released jihadist like the assailant on Sunday.
The bill, which plans to increase the penalties for perpetrators, with a minimum of fourteen years in prison for serious crimes, and to prohibit their early release, is due to be tabled soon in Parliament, where the conservatives have a very large majority. The text also focuses on preventing recidivism, promising to double the number of probation officers.
"We don't want to go back to a system that requires a lot of very, very laborious monitoring (…) when a prison version may prove to be better ", Boris Johnson justified himself at a press conference. "The anomaly we have to resolve is the process by which some people continue to be automatically released on parole without any review", he added, also estimating " very difficult " to rehabilitate Islamists.
After the attack, police announced that officers from his counterterrorism unit were on site "As part of a preventive operation", suggesting that the assailant was being watched. "If someone has to be watched by the police as soon as they are released, that means there is sufficient reason to keep them in prison", Streatham Labor MP Bell Ribeiro-Addy reacted to Sky News.
Labor mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, said "angry (…) lack of progress in achieving the changes that were promised to us in November " by the government. According to him, " about " 70 people sentenced for “Terrorist offense” are currently at large in London. "One of the questions I have for the government is what do we do with these 70 or so people", he added on ITV.
