Anjem Choudary’s licence under ‘urgent’ review in wake of London Bridge attack

From the Telegraph and the Daily Mail

Anjem Choudary, Britain’s most notorious hate cleric, will be subjected to even tighter controls, The Telegraph has learnt, after a photograph emerged of him standing side-by-side with the London Bridge terrorist. . .  in Stoke-on-Trent in March 2009 at a sharia law conference organised by al-Muhajiroun, a group banned under anti-terror legislation. 

Khan, 28, used the alias Abu Saif when he spoke alongside Choudary at the event on Sharia Law, organised by a group called Ahl Sunnah Wal Jumah.  Despite pleading guilty with his fellow eight plotters, Choudary claimed Khan was innocent of trying to blow up the London Stock Exchange. 

Well-placed sources said Choudary’s licencing conditions were now under urgent review as part of a crackdown on 67 jihadist terrorists freed from jail and living in the community. 

In the latest crackdown, a jihadist convicted of trying to join Islamic State in Syria in 2015 was sent back to jail for an extra two years on Monday for hiding a mobile phone from counter-terror police. It is understood that a further half a dozen convicted terrorists will be recalled or arrested within a week. 

Counter-terror police are in a race against time to lock up convicted terrorists living in the community amid fears they may now go on the run or else launch attacks, fearing they may be re-arrested imminently in the crackdown.

Policing at Christmas markets in major cities is being stepped up as well as at the showpiece Winter Wonderland event at Hyde Park in central London to reassure the public at a time of heightened tensions.

Government officials are convinced Khan “hoodwinked” supervisors, “deceiving” them into allowing him to travel unaccompanied from his home in Stafford to London on Friday to attend the conference where he stabbed to death Jack Merritt, 25, and Saskia Jones, 23. 

Government sources said Choudary’s licencing conditions were now under review. “We need to look at his whole licencing because we need to make sure vulnerable people are not going to be radicalised by him,” said the source, explaining that the murderous attack on Friday allowed officials to reassess the risk posed by all freed terrorists.

At the time he was jailed for terror offences in 2016, Choudary had been linked to 15 terror plots dating back almost 20 years and connections to hundreds of British jihadists who fled to Syria to fight. Choudary was released in October last year and moved back to his family home in May.

The Telegraph has learnt that Choudary has begun visiting a local mosque close to his home in Ilford in east London. He has a lot of choice in Ilford. One in the street where he lives (I know the street) one in the next street, several more 5 minutes walk away. 

Choudary, 52, was pictured in east London wearing an ankle tag after his disciple Usman Khan butchered two in a murderous rampage on Friday. He went to the convenience store on the corner of his road and Ilford Lane, the main road at that end of Ilford which I recognise. I don’t begrudge him a pint of milk and a loaf, but I would rather he queued for it on the prison landing at mealtimes.  

New legislation is also being looked at to tighten up the supervision of terrorists released into the community.