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| Terrorist releases prompt u-turn | |
| (30 minutes later) | |
| Ministers have changed a controversial early release scheme after admitting two terrorism convicts were let out of jail early to ease prison overcrowding. The justice ministry said that people convicted under terrorism laws would no longer be eligible for early release. | |
| Yassin Nassari left Wakefield Prison in February after being jailed last summer for three and a half years. | Yassin Nassari left Wakefield Prison in February after being jailed last summer for three and a half years. |
| He was arrested in May 2006 at Luton Airport carrying what police said were blueprints for a rocket in his luggage. | He was arrested in May 2006 at Luton Airport carrying what police said were blueprints for a rocket in his luggage. |
| Nassari, 28, from Ealing in west London, was convicted in July 2007 of having articles of use to terrorists. | |
| Scotland Yard detectives had arrested him after he arrived on a flight from Amsterdam. They found a computer hard-drive in his luggage including documents about martyrdom and weapons training. | |
| They also found a blueprint for a home-made Qassam rocket, used by Palestinian militants to target Israel. Experts told his trial that the blueprint was detailed enough to manufacture a rocket. Detectives also linked Nassari to extremist websites and chatrooms. | |
| Eligible for release | |
| Under the terms of the government's special early release scheme to ease overcrowding, prisoners are eligible to leave prison 18 days earlier than normally expected, if they had been jailed for less than four years and not committed a serious violent offence. | |
| Nassari had blueprints for a home-made steel rocketEarlier on Friday, a spokesman for the Ministry of Justice confirmed that a Category A prisoner had been released from Wakefield prison on 11 February because he met the criteria for early release. | |
| Nassari would have been eligible for release 17 days later, having served enough of his sentence to be considered for parole. | |
| But a spokesman later announced that Justice Secretary Jack Straw had now banned all prisoners convicted of terrorism offences from benefiting from the early release scheme. | |
| The spokesman denied the previous policy was a mistake but confirmed that a second man convicted of a terrorism offence had been released under the scheme. | |
| INTERNET EXTREMISM Nassari used extremist sitesContacts included Tariq al-Daour (above)Al-Daour convicted in 2007 Web war waged from a bedroom "The number of terrorism-related cases likely to fall within the current criteria is very small," said the spokesman. | |
| "However, in the light of these cases the justice secretary has decided to change the criteria so that any prisoner convicted under terrorism legislation would not be eligible." | |
| Separate Prison Service rules, issued in February, had already banned prisoners convicted of terrorism offences from being released early on an electronic tag. Nassari's offence was one of those listed in the new rules. However, at the time it did not preclude him from being released under the special rules for over-crowding. | |
| At the time of Nassari's conviction, the Metropolitan Police said he had the "ideology, ability and determination" to find and download material which was useful for terrorism. | |
| "He communicated with other like-minded people and shared their interest in gruesome extremist material," said Peter Clarke, the since retired head of Counter Terrorism Command. | |
| "What he intended to do upon his return to the UK is 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." |