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A man whose 15-year sentence made him Britain’s youngest terrorist is safe from release, despite his key role in a plot to kill police officers, the Parole Board has decided.
The man who cannot be identified was jailed in 2015 for a transnational plot to assassinate police officers in Australia on Anzac Day, which commemorates Australians and New Zealanders killed in wars.
The man from Blackburn, Lancashire, sent a flood of encrypted messages to fellow jihadists in Australia, after a terrorist recruiter had prepared it online in his room.
Now he is 20 years old and a legal order prevents him from being publicly identified. It is only known as RXG.
He was sentenced at the Old Bailey in 2015 to the equivalent of life in prison in the juvenile justice system, with a minimum of five years to serve.
He admitted to sending thousands of messages online to contacts in Australia and was arrested by British police when he was 14 years old.
In sentencing in 2015, Judge Saunders said: “The victims must be police officers who were to be killed with a car or beheaded.”
In prison he was diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder and received treatment for it, in addition to undergoing a de-radicalization plan.
It is understood that he was instructed by imams about what Islam allows and prohibits, in addition to having psychological support.
He was a quiet and shy boy before his conviction and was radicalized online via his smartphone. He became prominent in the online jihadist community and was linked to 89 Twitter accounts with 24,000 followers.
RXG sent thousands of messages to 18-year-old Sevdet Besim, encouraging him to kill police officers at the Anzac memorial parade in Melbourne.
Explaining its decision that release was safe, the Parole Board said Monday: “After considering the circumstances of his crime, the progress made while in detention, and the evidence presented at the hearings, the panel was convinced that RXG was fit for release. “
The 20-year-old will have strict licensing conditions, including having to live at a specific address, monitoring through an electronic tag, regular appointments to verify that he does not relapse, and restrictions on his movement, human contact and access to technology and the Internet.
The Parole Board said that when RXG turned to terrorism, the factors that drove his offense included “not dealing well with feelings of anger, being manipulative, not being open and honest with people, his lack of maturity, obsessive behavior , the influence on him of associates, useless beliefs and extremist points of view, his radicalization and his affiliation with Isis ”.
The Parole Board said, “No one at the hearing felt that more time was necessary within the custodial estate.”
Public faith in the Parole Board was shaken when it decided to release serial rapist John Worboys early, sparking an outcry and sparking a police investigation that resulted in the former London taxi driver being jailed for other crimes.
Faith in de-radicalization was shaken after a former convicted terrorist carried out an attack on London Bridge in November 2019, killing two people who had tried to aid him in his rehabilitation. That was followed a few months later, in February 2020, by an attack on Streatham High Street by another released terrorist, who was shot and killed by police.
