The lawyer for the London Bridge attacker has told the ABC he was shocked when he heard Usman Khan was responsible for the deadly stabbing rampage, saying when he saw him last year he was convinced he was reformed.
Khan was shot dead by police on London Bridge on Friday afternoon after killing two people and injuring three others.
He had been sentenced to 16 years in prison in 2012 but was released on licence in December last year.
He had been wearing an electronic tag.
Now solicitor Vajahat Sharif has questioned whether enough was done to “deradicalise” Khan during the eight years he spent in prison.
Mr Sharif began representing the terrorist before his jailing in 2012 for terrorism offences.
“When he was arrested he was a teenager, when he was sentenced he was 19 years old,” Mr Sharif told the ABC.
“So I’m sure he could have overcome this improper thinking with the right assistance and guidance.”
Usman Khan was in prison for eight years for a terror offence.
Mr Sharif argues Khan needed more targeted assistance.
“I was very shocked, very upset for the victims and their families and also very upset about what happened to Usman. How did something like this happen?” Mr Sharif questioned.
In a letter sent from London’s Belmarsh Prison to Mr Sharif’s associate in 2012, and seen by the ABC, Khan asked to be placed in a “deradicalisation” program.
“I would be grateful if you could arrange some kind of course, that I can do where I can properly learn Islam,” Khan wrote.
“And I can prove I don’t carry the extreme view that I might have carried before.”
Authorities did not respond directly to Mr Sharif’s comments, but the ABC understands Khan did attend anti-terror workshops while in prison.
Usman Khan’s lawyer Vajahat Sharif was shocked his client was responsible for the London Bridge terrorist attack
‘Something has gone completely wrong’
One of Khan’s two victims has been named as 25-year-old Jack Merritt, a Cambridge University graduate who was course coordinator for prisoner rehabilitation program Learning Together.
The criminology program was hosting a conference at Fishmongers’ Hall when Khan — who was in attendance — threatened to blow up the venue before stabbing several people including Mr Merritt.
Jack Merritt was one of two people killed in the attack.
Mr Sharif told the ABC he could not fault the decision to grant early release at the time.
“While he was in custody he was engaging fully and completely with whatever the prison probation authorities required of him,” Mr Sharif said.
“On the face of it he was a success, he was doing very well. So something has gone completely wrong.”
In the letter sent in 2012, Kahn wrote that he wanted to “live my life as a good Muslim and also a good citizen of Britain”.
Law and order high on election agenda after attack
Khan’s attack pushed law and order toward the top of the British political agenda ahead of this month’s election.
The incident initially prompted a pause in election campaigning, but scaled-back activities resumed on Saturday, ahead of the December 12 election that could decide the fate of Brexit.
The attack has put law and order back toward the top of the UK election agenda.
Leader of the main opposition Labour Party Jeremy Corbyn criticised the Government’s sentencing policies in the wake of the incident.
“There’s got to be a very full investigation,” said Mr Corbyn, who is seeking to depose Prime Minister Boris Johnson but trails in opinion polls.
“I think there is also a question about what the probation service were doing … and whether the parole board should have been involved in deciding whether or not he should have been allowed to be released from prison in the first place,” he said.
Earlier, Mr Johnson said the London Bridge attack was a terrorist act and vowed to end a practice whereby serious offenders can be automatically let out of prison early.
“I have long said that this system simply isn’t working,” he said after visiting the scene of the attack on Saturday.
Police said they were continuing their investigation by searching an address in Stafford and the Stoke areas of central England, with the country’s top counter-terrorism officer saying they were not looking for any other suspects.
