Freed extremists place UK in peril, says watchdog

 
23 January 2014

Britain's anti-terror watchdog today warned that extremists being freed on to the streets of London are “dangerous people”.

David Anderson QC, the independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, told of the risks posed by at least six terror suspects placed under special restrictions which are being lifted within days.

Most of the men on terrorism prevention and investigation measures are believed to be living in London.

One, known as AM and whose Tpim is already believed to have ended, is feared to have volunteered to die as a suicide bomber in a 2006 plot to target transatlantic airliners.

Another, CD, was believed by the security services to have been planning a Mumbai-style atrocity in Britain, most likely in London. Home Secretary Theresa May refused to tell Parliament earlier this week whether she considered the men being freed from their Tpims to be dangerous.

But Mr Anderson, asked what would happen to them once they were no longer under a Tpim, said: “They join the pool of dangerous people who have not been convicted and are not in the criminal justice system.”

He added on BBC radio: “If you talk to MI5, they’d tell you that there are hundreds, probably even thousands, of people they consider terrorists or aspiring terrorists and on whom they think it’s important to keep an eye.

“The 10 people who have been subjected to Tpims are at the most serious end of that.”

Mr Anderson added that once terror suspects’ Tpims lapsed, they could be placed under greater MI5 and police surveillance.

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