Terrorist linked to 7/7 attacks released from mental hospital | UK | News

A terrorist linked to both the 9/11 attacks in New York and the 7/7 bombings in London has been released from a secure mental health hospital despite police warnings that he remains a risk to national security. Haroon Aswat, 50, left Bethlem Royal Infirmary in Bromley last year after a High Court judge ruled he could be released after completing treatment for mental illness.

Aswat is expected to move to Batley, West Yorkshire, to live with her family, The Telegraph reported. It is understood that the Ministry of Internal Affairs will closely monitor the person’s movements and who he is in contact with. He is also expected to face restrictions, including the possibility of sanctions or being sent back to prison, if he fails to comply with these restrictions.

His release is likely to raise concerns about whether he could be involved in extremist activities again. While in US custody, Aswat reportedly confessed to his involvement in both the 9/11 attacks in New York and the 7/7 bombings in London, which killed 52 people and injured more than 800.

Police found that the 7/7 bombers made 20 calls to a phone connected to Aswat in the hours before they carried out their attack.

Although Aswat was never convicted for the 9/11 or 7/7 attacks, he was convicted in the United States in 2015 for helping set up a terrorist training camp in Oregon in 1999 under the direction of hate preacher Abu Hamza. Prosecutors also said he trained at an extremist camp in Afghanistan in 2001 and stayed at an al-Qaeda safe house in Pakistan, where he met two of the future 7/7 bombers.

After more than a decade of legal proceedings, Aswat was extradited from the United Kingdom to the United States in 2014. He was sentenced to 20 years in prison, but his sentence was later reduced to seven years to reflect the time he spent in custody at Broadmoor Hospital in Berkshire.

He was deported back to England in 2022 and transferred to Bethlem Royal Infirmary under the Mental Health Act, which allows people with serious mental illnesses to be detained in hospital for treatment. It appears that the move was motivated by national security concerns.

Aswat was diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder, a condition that can affect a person’s thoughts, feelings, and behavior. But a psychiatrist concluded there was no evidence he had the condition when the Oregon crimes occurred in 1999.

In a report prepared before his extradition, the psychiatrist wrote: “Even if he is in a relatively stable mental state, [Aswat] “He continued to express violent Islamic extremist ideology.”

The psychiatrist also said Aswat was “extremely ambivalent about the need for medication and relapsed twice as a result of stopping treatment”, which coincided with violent outbursts. The report concluded that “the risk of Islamic violent extremism remains.”

However, at the hearing held at the Supreme Court last year, it was determined that Aswat could be released after completing treatment for mental illness.

The court was also told he was being assessed by a number of police officers who warned he “remained a risk to national security”.

A Home Office spokesman said Telegram: “Protecting the British public is the Government’s top priority. We have some of the most robust counter-terrorism measures in the world, including powers for the police and intelligence services to monitor and manage the risks posed by terrorist criminals and criminals.

“We do not routinely comment on individual cases, but where individuals are released from custody, appropriate measures are taken to manage risk and ensure public safety.”