London Stabbing Prompts Questions on Policies for Terrorism Convictions
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Version 0 of 1. LONDON — The British government proposed on Monday stopping the early release of hundreds of terrorism convicts after a succession of attacks by people let out halfway through their prison terms underscored long-festering problems with its anti-terrorist strategy. Under the government’s extraordinary plan, about 220 people currently locked up on terrorist offenses in Britain would have their prison terms extended, said Robert Buckland, the justice secretary. Instead of automatically being released halfway into their sentences, as is customary for many offenders in Britain, terrorism convicts would be forced to serve at least two-thirds of their terms, he said. And even then, they would only be released with the agreement of a parole board. But it was not clear the government’s proposal would withstand scrutiny in the courts, let alone solve a crisis that analysts said had more to do with a decade of austerity cuts to prison and probation services than with the length of sentences. Britain is wrestling with the same conundrum other Western democracies have faced after terrorist attacks, including the United States and France: the tension between security and civil rights. Legal analysts warned that human rights law prevented the British government from retroactively toughening the punishment of someone mid-sentence. And they said there is no evidence that increasing the length of someone’s time in prison reduced the risk of them committing another offense after their release. The government’s aggressive plan was prompted by an attack on Sunday in south London in which Sudesh Amman, 20, was accused of stabbing two people. The attack was interrupted by undercover police officers who had been tailing Mr. Amman since he was automatically released from prison last week, halfway into a three-year sentence on charges of distributing extremist material and possessing material that could be useful for preparing a terrorist attack, officials said. The undercover officers shot and killed him on the street. “We face a threat from an ideology that takes no heed for others, and we must use every tool we can to make sure that threat is neutralized,” Mr. Buckland told lawmakers on Monday. But there is some evidence that, without the government investing more in counseling and rehabilitation programs, lengthening sentences risks radicalizing people further, said Stuart Macdonald, a professor of legal studies at Swansea University. Mr. Amman’s mother, Haleema Faraz Khan, told the British broadcaster Sky News on Monday that her son watched Islamist material online and was radicalized at Belmarsh, a high-security prison housing many terrorist convicts that one former inmate described as a “jihadi training camp.” “He became more religious inside prison, that’s where I think he became radicalized,” Ms. Khan said. On Monday, the Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack, saying on the Hoop messaging app that the attacker was one of its “fighters.” The group has been using the messaging app since the authorities began a sustained effort to dislodge the group from Telegram, which had been its principal communication method since late 2014. Mr. Amman was wearing a fake explosive device, a tactic that has been used in several recent attacks including others claimed by the Islamic State. It is unclear what involvement, if any, the group had in Sunday’s attack. One stabbing victim, a man in his 40s, remained in the hospital in serious but stable condition, the police said on Monday. Another victim, a woman in her 50s, was released from the hospital, as was a woman in her 20s who was struck by glass after the gunshots. The attack by Mr. Amman was the second in several months in which a terrorist convict released early under British sentencing laws went on a stabbing spree. In November, Usman Khan, 28, who had been convicted of being part of a group that plotted to bomb London’s stock exchange, was accused of killing two people and injuring three others in an attack near London Bridge before being shot dead by the police. Mr. Khan had been wearing an electronic tag after being automatically released halfway into a 16-year sentence. The offense for which Mr. Amman was imprisoned made him a more typical terrorism convict, analysts said. He was sentenced in December 2018 after confessing to 13 counts of expressing support for Islamist terrorism and sharing Islamic State and Al Qaeda propaganda with his family and on social media. He sent beheading videos to his girlfriend, the authorities said, suggesting that she kill her nonbelieving parents. In a list in a notepad, the police said, Mr. Amman wrote that his top life goals was to die a martyr. And he wrote of a terrorist attack: “If you can’t make a bomb because family, friends or spies are watching or suspecting you, take a knife, Molotov, sound bombs or a car at night and attack.” After serving half his sentence and being released last week, Mr. Amman moved into a halfway house for ex-offenders, a part of the government’s anti-terrorist response that some analysts said deserved more scrutiny than the length of their sentences. “If the fellow shot on Sunday received an extra year in prison, I frankly don’t think that would have changed his mind,” said Clive Walker, a professor of criminal justice at the University of Leeds School of Law. Lengthening sentences was “no doubt popular, but it misses the point,” he said. “The big questions we face are: What do we do with these people in prison to make them change their mind-sets? And what do we do when people are released, because release is inevitable?” It was an indication of how worried the authorities were about Mr. Amman that they had him tailed by armed, undercover officers. Chris Phillips, the former head of the National Counter Terrorism Security Office, said an operation like that required the work of dozens of officers. He said he could not recall another case in which undercover officers had halted a terrorist attack midway through. Echoing the views of many law enforcement officials, Mr. Phillips backed ending early releases of any kind for terrorist convicts. But he also said that austerity cuts to prison and probation services had left the authorities ill-equipped to reduce the risk of people reoffending. Spending on prisons in 2018 was 14 percent lower than in 2010, even as the demands on prisons grew, according to the Institute for Government, an independent research group. Since those budget cuts, the number of assaults on both prisoners and staff members has gone up, and inmates’ access to rehabilitation services has been limited. Putting terrorism convicts in the same prisons as organized criminals also gives terrorists better access to guns and knives after their release, Mr. Phillips said. “What we’ve got is terrorists who’ve always found it quite difficult to get ahold of weapons mixing with armed organized crime groups that have loads of weapons,” he said. “This is a succession of governments that have let the public down on criminal justice.” The measures proposed on Monday fit with Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s approach on criminal justice. The government has put forward measures that emphasized longer jail terms for violent and terrorist offenders, and opened the door to increased monitoring in some cases after their release. A counterterrorism act passed last year already raised the maximum sentences for some offenses. But some urged the government to go further: Lord Carlile, a member of the House of Lords, suggested on Monday that the government reintroduce so-called control orders that allow the home secretary to put released convicts under virtual house arrest, a measure scrapped years ago for being too harsh. But the prospect of stiffening penalties for offenses like Mr. Amman’s — not planning an attack, but having and distributing terrorist material — alarmed some analysts, especially given how young many offenders are. “If you set the bar too low, you create a license for just arresting and imprisoning endless number of fanatics and inadequates, rather than individuals who are actively engaged in wanting to harm people,” said Richard Garside, the director of the Center for Crime and Justice Studies in London. “Few things are more likely to radicalize and alienate someone than being put in prison because of things he believes, but hasn’t done.” Rukmini Callimachi, Megan Specia and Jane Bradley contributed reporting. |