A Yorkshire man who plotted to set up an extremist training camp with Abu Hamza will be permitted to move home after his release from prison - despite an expert witness and police experts concluding he "remains a risk to national security".
50-year old, Haroon Aswat, from Batley, West Yorkshire, was jailed for 20 years in 2015 after he admitted conspiring to set up the ‘terrorist’ camp in the US state of Oregon.
Having served his sentence in the US, the UK born man was deported to the UK in 2022 and detained under the Mental Health Act, although a court heard his release was "expected in the relatively near future" after effective treatment.
A judge approved a notification order for Aswat, which decrees authorities should be updated if he moves address or travels long distances (which polemicists have opposed as being to leniant).
After his return, Aswat was held under the Mental Health Act and diagnosed with a schizoaffective disorder. A psychiatric evaluation done in 2022 said there was “no evidence” that the disorder existed when the 1999 offences were committed (High Court judgement, 2025). The same report also said the doctor saw Aswat “openly endorsing extremist ideology” and even stating “I am a terrorist.”
He wrote in a report ahead of his extradition: "Even when in a relatively stable mental state [Aswat] has continued to express violent extremists’ Islamic ideology."
According to the psychiatrist, Aswat was "highly ambivalent about the need for medication and had relapsed twice as a result of stopping treatment", which had coincided with violent outbursts.
However, recently Judge High Court judge Mr Justice Jay said: “The defendant’s treatment has been effective.”
The order, however, has a loophole: under current law people held for mental health reasons are exempt from the mandatory electronic ankle tag that is normally placed on high risk terror suspects. Because of that, Aswat is set to be released into the community without the GPS based supervision that most terrorism offenders receive.
Aswat, 50, confessed to the 2005 London bombing, and a role in the 9/11 atrocity in 2001.
High Court papers revealed expert witness, Det Chief Supt Gareth Rees had “grave concerns about the risk which the defendant poses to the UK’s national security and to the public” in a witness statement submitted to the High Court in April 2025 In his witness statement Mr Rees said of Aswat: “He has spoken positively of his time with al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and expressed aspirations to reconnect with them. “Based on my experience, this is conduct which gives me grave concerns about the risk which the defendant poses to the UK’s national security and to the public.”
Aswat trained in al-Qaeda camps in Afghanistan months before 9/11. His extremist background goes back well before the recent conviction. He received training at al Qaeda camps in Afghanistan months before the September 11 attacks, a fact confirmed by intelligence intercepts. A ledger found in a Pakistani house where Khalid Sheikh Mohammed – a known planner of the 9/11 plot – had stayed, listed Aswat’s name among active operatives.
In 1999 he worked with Abu Hamza al Masri on a detailed plan to create a terrorist training camp on U.S. soil, the very plot that led to his 2015 conviction. Police also uncovered about twenty phone calls made by the 7/7 London suicide bombers to a number linked to Aswat, although he was never charged over the July 2005 attacks. The High Court hearing was told Aswat has also been assessed by several police officers in the UK, who concluded he "remains a risk to national security".
According to a Home Office spokesperson, notification orders "allows the police and other authorities to monitor an offender and to manage any ongoing risk they pose".
Polemicists argue Letting Aswat out with only a notification order, and no electronic monitoring, seems like a half measure for a clearly dangerous person. The order meets the bare minimum the statute asks for, but the heavy weight of expert testimony points to the need for tighter supervision. Changing the law so that mandatory electronic monitoring applies to all high risk psychiatric detainees, and adding a regular review of notification orders, would better line up public safety with the idea of fairness and proportionality.
Eddie Price
References
• R v Aswat [2025] UKHC 12.
• Home Office, “Notification Orders: Guidance for Police and Security Agencies” (2023).
• Detective Chief Superintendent Gareth Rees, witness statement (April 2025).
• Psychiatric report of Dr A. Khan, “Assessment of Haroon Aswat” (2023).
• Criminal Justice Act 2003, s. 127(1).
• Mental Health Act 1983, s. 2.
• Terrorism Act 2000, s. 5.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haroon_Rashid_Aswat
https://witnessdirectory.com/signup.php
