DAVID BARRETT
The decision to award early release to a man jailed for a terrorist offence was attacked by the Conservatives yesterday.
The Ministry of Justice confirmed Yassin Nassari, who was arrested at Luton Airport with blueprints for a rocket in his luggage, was freed 17 days early.
Nassari, 28, walked from a maximum-security jail seven months after a three-and-a-half year sentence was handed down, but had also spent more than one year on remand before conviction.
On the back of the outcry over Nassari's early release, Justice Secretary Jack Straw was yesterday forced to announced changes to the scheme.
Mr Straw said: "In the light of this case I have taken action to tackle this issue - no more prisoners convicted under terrorism legislation will be released through the ECL end of custody licence scheme."
A Ministry of Justice spokeswoman added: "The number of terrorism-related cases likely to fall within the current ECL criteria is very small."
However, the move has failed to appease Shadow Home Secretary David Davis, who said: "Jack Straw must now say when he knew about this, and why he has only just acted. Was Nassari released with or without his knowledge? If it was without, who on earth is running his department?
"The government's perverse approach to security defies common sense. On the one hand, they are trying to pass a new law extending the period for holding innocent people - convicted of nothing - when we already have the longest period of pre-charge detention in the free world.
"On the other hand, they are releasing a terrorist we have managed to bring to justice, a dangerous man convicted in our courts for researching how to deploy military weapons in this country."
A Ministry of Justice spokeswoman said Nassari was released from Wakefield Prison on February 11.
Nassari, from Ealing, west London, was found guilty at the Old Bailey of possessing documents likely to be useful to a terrorist.
His computer contained documents about martyrdom and weapons training as well as instructions on how to construct the Qassam artillery rocket - a home-made steel rocket used by terrorist groups in the Middle East. He was acquitted of the more serious offence of possessing articles for terrorist purposes.
Nassari's Dutch wife, Bouchra El Hor, 24, was cleared of failing to disclose information about terrorism.
The couple and their five-month-old baby were stopped at the airport in May 2006 on their way home from trips to Syria and Holland.
Metropolitan Police Deputy Assistant Commissioner Peter Clarke said at the time of Nassari's conviction he held the "ideology, ability and determination to find and download material which would have been useful to terrorists".
The top counter-terror policeman added that Nassari's intentions on arrival in Britain were "unclear".
"However, it is possible that his research could have ended up in the hands of individuals or groups willing to put it into practice," said Mr Clarke, who has since retired.
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