Terrorist linked to 7/7 attacks released from mental hospital

A terrorist linked to both the 9/11 attacks in New York and the 7/7 London bombings has been released from a secure mental health hospital despite police warnings that he remains a risk to national security. Haroon Aswat, 50, has left Bethlem Royal Hospital in Bromley after a High Court judge ruled last year that he could be released once he had completed treatment for his mental illness.

Aswat is expected to move to Batley, West Yorkshire, to live with family, The Telegraph reports. It is understood the Home Office will closely monitor his movements and who he is in contact with. He is also expected to face restrictions, with the possibility of enforcement action or a return to prison if he breaks them.

His release is likely to spark concerns about whether he could become involved in extremist activity again. While in US custody, Aswat reportedly admitted involvement in both the 9/11 attacks in New York and the 7/7 bombings in London, in which 52 people were killed and more than 800 injured.

Police found that the 7/7 bombers made 20 calls to a phone linked to Aswat in the hours before carrying out their attacks.

Although he has never been convicted over either the 9/11 or 7/7 attacks themselves, Aswat was convicted in the US in 2015 for helping to set up a terrorist training camp in Oregon in 1999 under the direction of hate preacher Abu Hamza. Prosecutors also said he trained at an extremist camp in Afghanistan in 2001 and stayed at an al-Qaeda safe house in Pakistan, where he met two of the future 7/7 bombers.

After more than a decade of legal proceedings, Aswat was extradited from Britain to the US in 2014. He was sentenced to 20 years in prison, although his sentence was later reduced to seven years to reflect time he had already spent detained at Broadmoor Hospital in Berkshire.

He was deported back to Britain in 2022 and transferred to Bethlem Royal Hospital under the Mental Health Act, which allows people with serious mental illnesses to be detained in hospital for treatment. The move is understood to have been driven by national security concerns.

Aswat has been diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder, a condition that can affect a person’s thoughts, emotions and behaviour. However, a psychiatrist concluded there was no evidence he had the condition when the Oregon offences were committed in 1999.

In a report prepared before his extradition, the psychiatrist wrote: “Even when in a relatively stable mental state [Aswat] has continued to express violent extremist Islamic ideology.”

The psychiatrist also said Aswat was “highly ambivalent about the need for medication and had relapsed twice as a result of stopping treatment”, which coincided with violent outbursts. The report concluded that “there remains the risk of Islamic violent extremism”.

However, a hearing at the High Court last year found that Aswat could be released after completing treatment for his mental illness.

The court was also told that he had been assessed by several police officers who warned he “remains a risk to national security”.

A Home Office spokesman told The Telegraph: “Protecting the British public is the Government’s first priority. We have some of the most robust counter-terrorism measures in the world, including powers for police and intelligence services to monitor and manage the risk posed by terrorist offenders and criminals.

“We do not routinely comment on individual cases, but where individuals are released from detention, appropriate measures are in place to manage risk and ensure public safety.”