London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Thursday, Oct 30, 2025

Beyond rehabilitation: Terrorists get a second chance, while their victims get none

London Bridge attacker Usman Khan was a convicted terrorist and, in the eyes of the law, a “threat to the UK.” So why was he released from prison early and paraded as an example of successful rehabilitation?
London Bridge attacker Usman Khan was a convicted terrorist and, in the eyes of the law, a “threat to the UK.” So why was he released from prison early and paraded as an example of successful rehabilitation?

28-year-old Usman Khan stabbed two people to death and injured three others on Friday, before he was wrestled to the ground by members of the public and shot dead at point-blank range by police on London Bridge. Khan was wearing a fake suicide vest, and the incident is being treated as a terrorist attack by investigators.

Khan was not the archetypal US-style lone-wolf attacker, the kind who one day snaps and opens up on the public with an AR-15. Instead, he was a hate preacher and hardened terrorist who should never have been allowed back on the streets.

Together with a band of jihadists from London, Cardiff and Stoke-on-Trent, Khan was sentenced in 2012 to an indeterminate stretch in prison for his role in a plot to bomb the London Stock Exchange. He had also preached radical Islam on the streets of Stoke, planned to establish a terrorist training camp on family land in Kashmir, considered executing smaller attacks before the stock exchange hit and, though he was only 19 at the time of his arrest, was considered a “serious jihadi.”

In his sentencing remarks, Mr. Justice Wilkie said that the group were involved in a “serious, long-term venture in terrorism.” Wilkie noted that “these offenders would remain, even after a lengthy term of imprisonment, of such a significant risk that the public could not be adequately protected by their being managed on licence in the community.”

Yet just a year later, Khan’s sentence was fixed to 16 years behind bars. He served only seven of these years and was automatically released on licence (parole) in 2018, exactly as Judge Wilkie had warned against.

In a bitter twist of irony, Khan attended a ‘Learning Together’ conference in the hours leading up to his attack. Organized by academics from the University of Cambridge, the conference gave criminology students a chance to meet and chat with convicts, to learn more about “stigma, marginalisation and the role of intergroup contact in reducing prejudice.” Khan had reportedly been invited to the conference by organisers.

Breaking stigmas and fighting marginalization is the kind of thing that event organizers Amy Ludlow and Ruth Armstrong tweeted excitedly about in the run-up to Friday’s conference. However, they have both since locked their Twitter accounts.

Khan’s rampage began during a storytelling and creative writing workshop, and among his victims was Jack Merritt, a 25-year-old course coordinator. The man’s father described his son as “a beautiful spirit who always took the side of the underdog," while an associate hailed his "deep commitment to prisoner education and rehabilitation."

Softening the punitive edges of the criminal justice system has been the goal of certain criminologists and commenters around the world for centuries. In the run-up to next month’s general election, advocacy organizations have even written to political leaders warning them not to stigmatize criminals by calling them names, and arguing for shorter sentences and “second chances” for offenders.

Society did not fail Khan and his co-conspirators. The band of jihadists chose to marginalize themselves, and willingly embraced their stigmatic identity as terrorists. Organizations like the Prison Reform Trust may wring their hands and fret over the social injustice of calling a criminal a criminal, but extremists willing to wipe out scores of innocent lives with high explosives are motivated by pathological hatred, and likely don’t give a toss what they’re called.

They’re also, in Khan’s case at least, proof that some criminals cannot be rehabilitated. Unlike a robber who, given the right opportunities, can be turned away from robbing, Khan viewed ordinary Britons as “kuffars” and “dogs,” and was bent on waging holy war against the country that gave his family a home, and him a shot at life in the civilized world.

And there’s more like him out there. Of the nine conspirators who were jailed in 2012, five are rumored to be out on parole, including Mo Chowdhury, referred to by Judge Wilkie as the “lynchpin of the group.” Tracking those down and reassuring the public they aren’t a threat should be the first order of business for the British government now that the failure with Khan has been made so tragically obvious.

Speaking before an emergency meeting on Friday night, Prime Minister Boris Johnson called it a “mistake to allow serious and violent criminals to come out of prison early,” and vowed to enforce “appropriate sentences for dangerous criminals.”

For those stabbed to death in cold blood on Friday and for their families, Johnson’s words came too late. For policymakers and law enforcement officials, the difficult but necessary questions that must now be asked are: is it fair to treat irreconcilable terrorists like ‘ordinary decent criminals’? And how can someone who fundamentally hates your civilization possibly be rehabilitated by its institutions?

By Graham Dockery, RT
Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
UK and Vietnam Sign Landmark Migration Deal to Fast-Track Returns of Irregular Arrivals
UK Drug-Pricing Overhaul Essential for Life-Sciences Ambition, Says GSK Chief
Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie Temporarily Leave the UK Amid Their Parents’ Royal Fallout
UK Weighs Early End to Oil and Gas Windfall Tax as Reeves Seeks Investment Commitments
UK Retail Inflation Slows as Shop Prices Fall for First Time Since Spring
Next Raises Full-Year Profit Guidance After Strong Third-Quarter Performance
Reform UK’s Lee Anderson Admits to 'Gaming' Benefits System While Advocating Crackdown
United States and South Korea Conclude Major Trade Accord Worth $350 Billion
Hurricane Melissa Strikes Cuba After Devastating Jamaica With Record Winds
Vice President Vance to Headline Turning Point USA Campus Event at Ole Miss
U.S. Targets Maritime Narco-Routes While Border Pressure to Mexico Remains Limited
Bill Gates at 70: “I Have a Real Fear of Artificial Intelligence – and Also Regret”
Elon Musk Unveils Grokipedia: An AI-Driven Alternative to Wikipedia
Saudi Arabia Unveils Vision for First-Ever "Sky Stadium" Suspended Over Desert Floor
Amazon Announces 14 000 Corporate Job Cuts as AI Investment Accelerates
UK Shop Prices Fall for First Time Since March, Food Leads the Decline
London Stock Exchange Group ADR (LNSTY) Earns Zacks Rank #1 Upgrade on Rising Earnings Outlook
Soap legend Tony Adams, long-time star of Crossroads, dies at 84
Rachel Reeves Signals Tax Increases Ahead of November Budget Amid £20-50 Billion Fiscal Gap
NatWest Past Gains of 314% Spotlight Opportunity — But Some Key Risks Remain
UK Launches ‘Golden Age’ of Nuclear with £38 Billion Sizewell C Approval
UK Announces £1.08 Billion Budget for Offshore Wind Auction to Boost 2030 Capacity
UK Seeks Steel Alliance with EU and US to Counter China’s Over-Capacity
UK Struggles to Balance China as Both Strategic Threat and Valued Trading Partner
Argentina’s Markets Surge as Milei’s Party Secures Major Win
British Journalist Sami Hamdi Detained by U.S. Authorities After Visa Revocation Amid Israel-Gaza Commentary
King Charles Unveils UK’s First LGBT+ Armed Forces Memorial at National Memorial Arboretum
At ninety-two and re-elected: Paul Biya secures eighth term in Cameroon amid unrest
Racist Incidents Against UK Nurses Surge by 55%
UK Chancellor Rachel Reeves Cites Shared Concerns With Trump Administration as Foundation for Early US-UK Trade Deal
Essentra plc: A Closer Look at a UK ‘Penny Stock’ Opportunity Amid Market Weakness
U.S. and China Near Deal to Avert Rare-Earth Export Controls Ahead of Trump-Xi Summit
Justin time: Justin Herbert Shields Madison Beer with Impressive Reflex at Lakers Game
Russia’s President Putin Declares Burevestnik Nuclear Cruise Missile Ready for Deployment
Giuffre’s Memoir Alleges Maxwell Claimed Sexual Act with Clooney
House Republicans Move to Strip NYC Mayoral Front-Runner Zohran Mamdani of U.S. Citizenship
Record-High Spoiled Ballots Signal Voter Discontent in Ireland’s 2025 Presidential Election
Philippines’ Taal Volcano Erupts Overnight with 2.4 km Ash Plume
Albania’s Virtual AI 'Minister' Diella Set to 'Birth' Eighty-Three Digital Assistants for MPs
Tesla Unveils Vision for Optimus V3 as ‘Biggest Product of All Time’, Including Surgical Capabilities
Francis Ford Coppola Auctions Luxury Watches After Self-Financed Film Flop
Convicted Sex Offender Mistakenly Freed by UK Prison Service Arrested in London
United States and China Begin Constructive Trade Negotiations Ahead of Trump–Xi Summit
U.S. Treasury Sanctions Colombia’s President Gustavo Petro over Drug-Trafficking Allegations
Miss USA Crowns Nebraska’s Audrey Eckert Amid Leadership Overhaul
‘I Am Not Done’: Kamala Harris Signals Possible 2028 White House Run
NBA Faces Integrity Crisis After Mass Arrests in Gambling Scandal
Swift Heist at the Louvre Sees Eight French Crown Jewels Stolen in Under Seven Minutes
U.S. Halts Trade Talks with Canada After Ontario Ad Using Reagan Voice Triggers Diplomatic Fallout
Microsoft AI CEO: ‘We’re making an AI that you can trust your kids to use’ — but can Microsoft rebuild its own trust before fixing the industry’s?
×