UK plans tougher line on terror jail terms

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said new rules may be brought in to retrospectively change sentences for people jailed for terrorism offenses to ensure they are not eligible for early release.

The announcement came after a knife attack in London on Sunday by convicted terrorist Sudesh Amman, who had been released early from a previous sentence. This was the second recent incident involving an early-released terrorist reoffending, after Usman Khan killed two people at London Bridge in November. Both incidents ended with the attacker being shot dead.

"The difficulty is how to apply that retrospectively to the cohort of people who currently qualify," Johnson said. "We do think it's time to take action to ensure that people, irrespective of the law we're bringing in, people in the current stream, do not qualify automatically for early release, people convicted of terrorist offenses.

"I hope people understand that the anomaly we need to clear up is the process by which some people are still coming out under automatic early release without any kind of scrutiny or parole system."

After the London Bridge attack, Johnson vowed to change the law to end automatic early release for those convicted of terrorism offenses. Now he wants to be able to change that for people already serving sentences.

Khan attacked when attending an event celebrating a prisoner rehabilitation program in which he had taken part. His victims, Jack Merritt and Saskia Jones, were program workers.

Major challenges

Johnson said deradicalization posed major challenges. "Looking at the problems we have with re-educating and reclaiming and rehabilitating people who succumb to (extremism) is very, very hard, and very tough," he said.

The Independent reports that although there are around 200 people serving terror-related sentences in prisons of the United Kingdom, as many as 800 are regarded as potential extremists and causing concern.

After the London Bridge attack, British Home Secretary Priti Patel promised "police and probation officers the resources they need to investigate and track offenders, introducing tougher sentences and launching major reviews into how offenders are managed after they are released".

Lie detector tests were suggested. But Chief Secretary to the Treasury Rishi Sunak rejected the idea.

"The counterterrorism budget, which is what we're dealing with here, has actually been increased every year for the last five or six years," he told the BBC.