Hate preacher Anjem Choudary to be freed from jail despite remaining ‘genuinely dangerous’

Anjem Choudary, the notorious Islamist hate preacher, will be released from jail next month despite a chilling warning from the justice minister that he remained “genuinely dangerous”.

Choudary, 51, is due to be freed within weeks after serving half of a five-and-a-half-year prison sentence for encouraging Muslims to join Islamic State.

The Government admitted on Tuesday it was powerless to prevent Choudary from being released on licence. Rory Stewart, the prisons minister, said that the preacher was “a deeply pernicious, destabilising influence . . . He is… somebody who is a genuinely dangerous person. We will be watching him very carefully. . . Even if they (Choudary and others)  themselves are not making bombs. They are a completely pernicious influence on the people they come into contact with and they need to be kept away from them.”

David Videcette, a former detective with the anti-terror squad who investigated the July 7 suicide attacks on London in 2005, said: “Every plot I ever researched – someone in it was linked to Choudary.”

Lord Carlile,  former Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation, said Choudary “knows how to play the system”, adding: “It is disturbing and worrying that he will be back on the streets.”

It is Choudary will likely be tagged and placed in a ‘halfway house’ with restrictions imposed on his use of the internet and on the people he can mix with. Security services are also expected to keep him under surveillance.