Judges Keep Releasing Terrorists—and More Innocent People Die

When a High Court judge wishes a convicted terrorist “all the best,” something has gone badly wrong in our legal system. 

Justice Robert Jay made the remarks when approving the release of Haroon Aswat, the al-Qaeda terrorist who, in 2015, was sentenced to 20 years in prison in the U.S. for setting up a terrorist training camp. He was deported to the UK, his country of birth, in 2022 and has been detained under the Mental Health Act ever since. During his hearing prior to his release this week, Justice Jay appeared to sympathise with Aswat, saying, “It could not have been too pleasant being in American custody all that time.” He then advised Aswat that “the way forward is to keep on your medication, listen to the advice you are going to get, and keep out of the sort of things you were doing.” 

The “sort of things” Aswat has been doing is assisting literal terrorists. In 2017, he confessed to being the “mastermind behind the 9/11 attacks and a 2005 terrorist attack in the UK.” Although he was never hit with any charges relating to the July 7 bombings in London in 2005 (during which four coordinated explosions across London’s public transport network killed 52 people), police traced 20 calls made by the bombers to a phone linked to him. He was subsequently arrested in Zambia while in possession of a terror manual and what was believed to be bomb parts.

Justice Jay’s comments have, understandably, provoked outrage. Reform UK leader Nigel Farage has called for him to lose his job and complained that “Aswat should be in a high-security jail until he dies.” Meanwhile, shadow justice secretary Robert Jenrick has said the judge’s well-wishes to Aswat are “an insult” to 7/7 victims. 

There is also little to suggest that Aswat has turned a new leaf and renounced his extremist beliefs. Senior anti-terror detective Gareth Rees has warned he has “grave concerns” about Aswat and believes he still poses a risk to national security and public safety. In his witness statement, Rees claimed that Aswat “has spoken positively of his time with al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and expressed aspirations to reconnect with them.”

According to U.S. District Court papers obtained by the Sun, even the U.S. government has objected to Aswat being released, complaining that “he is a terrorist and foot soldier of al-Qaeda trained to commit acts of violence.” Aswat himself does not seem shy about admitting this, and has been threatening to kill Christians, Jews, and his Muslim enemies as recently as 2022. 

Despite all this, Aswat will soon be released to his family in Batley, West Yorkshire, as a free man. He won’t even be subject to ankle monitoring to track his whereabouts. The British legal system forbids electronic tagging for psychiatric patients, on the grounds that it deprives them of liberty. So, once Aswat is set free—if he hasn’t been already—there will be virtually nothing stopping him from continuing on his previous course of facilitating terror and extremism.

The fears and concerns surrounding Aswat’s release are not unfounded. This pattern of indulging violent offenders in the name of ‘rehabilitative justice’ has, on numerous occasions, resulted in deadly consequences. Take Usman Khan. He was jailed in 2013 for terror offences—plotting to set up a jihadist training camp and to carry out attacks in the UK—and received a 16-year prison sentence. He was released automatically at the halfway point in December 2018 on licence, and was held up as “engaging” with deradicalisation—wearing an electronic tag, attending courses, saying the right things. 

Eleven months later, he travelled to a prisoner-rehabilitation conference at Fishmongers’ Hall in London. There, he murdered two organisers, Jack Merritt and Saskia Jones, and injured three others before being shot by police. It was a textbook case of rehabilitation failure. Officials mistook compliant behaviour for genuine change, and the very programme meant to reduce risk ended up providing the opportunity for his stabbing spree. Along with two knives strapped to his wrist and a suicide vest, Khan was wearing an electronic tag at the time of the attack. 

So was Adel Kermiche, a 19-year-old who stormed into a church in Normandy, France, and slit the throat of an elderly priest in 2016. Kermiche had twice attempted to reach Syria to fight alongside ISIS and was awaiting trial at the time. A magistrate had released him to his parents’ home with an ankle tag, which was disabled for a few hours each morning. It was during that time that he and an accomplice were able to carry out the murder of Fr. Jacques Hamel, taking the congregation hostage during the morning Mass and using nuns as human shields when the police arrived. Prosecutors had warned against Kermiche’s release, fearing that he was still a risk. 

Austria’s worst terror attack since 1985 tells a similar story. In 2020, Kujtim Fejzulai shot and killed four people and injured 23 during a rampage in central Vienna, before he was gunned down by police. He had been jailed for 22 months in April 2019 for trying to join ISIS, then was paroled that December after supposedly engaging with a deradicalisation programme. But his denunciation of jihadism was nothing more than a show. In July 2020, he even tried to buy rifle ammunition in Slovakia. Following his attack, Austria’s interior minister admitted there had been “intolerable mistakes” in how he was monitored. 

There is no reason for us to believe that the outcome will be any different for Haroon Aswat. He has shown no remorse for his actions and has even explicitly declared his intention to go right back to aiding al-Qaeda. What our recent history shows, again and again, is a failure of rehabilitative justice to tell the difference between performance and real change. 

Convicted terrorists are able to con judges into believing they are changed men by simply saying the right combination of magic words. In the case of Aswat, it seems, he did not even have to pretend. The British authorities were quite happy to simply release him back into society, despite clear evidence he is still a threat. 

This is what happens when a justice system treats every criminal as a victim. There is a tendency across the West to view crime as a pathology that can be cured, or as purely the result of external circumstances. There is a belief among the progressives who dominate the legal profession that if we can only give violent offenders enough therapy, welfare, and arts programmes, they will renounce their destructive behaviour or extremist beliefs and become normal, productive members of society. Time and again, this is proven not to be the case. Their criminality stems from something far more innate than their material circumstances, internet browsing history, or even mental health. 

Instead of recognising this lethal pattern, judges continue to push rehabilitation, a stance that seems to comfort judicial consciences more than it does protect the public. They can dress it up as compassion all they like, but there is no denying that this kind of self-indulgent sentimentality puts more people’s lives in danger. 

We saw the awful consequence of a blind belief in rehabilitative justice in the case of Iryna Zarutska—her killer was arrested no less than 14 times, and had endless opportunities to turn his life around. Why should people like Aswat be granted endless second chances when their victims were given none?