A high court judge has wished a 7/7 London bombing terrorist ‘all the best’ as he prepares to leave a secure hospital.
Haroon Aswat, who claims he was the mastermind behind the 2005 attacks that killed 52 people and 9/11 in the US, is set to be released into the community.
The judge, Sir Robert Jay’s remarks were made at a hearing at London’s Royal Courts of Justice.
Although Aswat was never charged with 7/7 offences, Aswat was linked to the killings after police traced 20 calls made by the suicide bombers to a phone linked to him.
A number of weeks later he was arrested in Zambia carrying a terror manual and suspected bomb-making materials.
US investigators found he had trained at al-Qaeda camps in Afghanistan before 9/11, and helped hate preacher Abu Hamza set up a terror training camp in Oregon in 1999.
They also discovered documents with his name in a Pakistani safehouse used by Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the chief planner of the 9/11 attacks.
Aswat fought extradition to the US for almost a decade on mental health grounds, but was eventually deported in 2014.
He pleaded guilty to terrorism offences and was given a 20-year sentence in 2015, that was later reduced to seven years due to time spent in custody in the UK.
He was deported back to Britain in 2022 and is currently being held at Bethlem Royal Hospital in South London.
The Sun recently obtained a transcript of the court hearing, held on April 1, which included aconversation between the judge and Aswat.
At one point Mr Justice Jay says: ‘I have to wish you all the best and say to you that the way forward is to keep on your medication, listen to the advice you are going to get, and keep out of the sort of things you were doing.
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‘Because you saw where it ended up and you do not want to go back to that, I am sure.’
When the judge asks him where he’ll be staying, Aswat replies he plans to move in with his family, who live in Batley, west Yorkshire.
It is not yet known when he will be released, however he will be freed without ankle tag monitoring due to a loophole which prevents checks on psychiatric patients.
The High Court papers revealed that Met Police Detective Chief Superintendent Gareth Rees of the Metropolitan Police’s Counter Terrorism Command told the court he had ‘grave concerns’ about Aswat being released and that he remains a threat to security.
In his witness statement he said of Aswat has ‘spoken positively of his time with al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and expressed aspirations to reconnect with them’.
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage has called for the judge to be sacked, while shadow justice secretary Robert Jenrick said his comments were an ‘insult’ to those that died in 2005, The Sun reports.
Aswat confessed to his role in 7/7 in 2017, while serving time in a US prison, saying he was a mastermind behind those attacks and the ones on 9/11.
US District Court papers obtained by The Sun, describe him as a ‘terrorist and foot soldier of al-Qaeda trained to commit acts of violence’.
A British government source insisted Aswat would be subject to ‘robust monitoring’ for 30 years after his release.
The Metro has contacted the Home Office for comment.
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