Osama bin Laden’s former spokesman is a “priority” for police and security services after he was released from a US jail and flown back to Britain.
Adel Abdul Bary was deported after a senior New York judge concluded the prisoner had a high risk of contracting Covid-19, partly because of his weight.
In 1998, Bary was the Europe-based publicist for al-Qaeda leaders and told journalists that the terror group had bombed US embassies in east Africa.
MI5 and counter-terrorism police are reviewing his return and resettlement.
In 1999, Scotland Yard detectives arrested Bary as a co-conspirator to the embassy attacks. More than 200 people were killed in Nairobi and Dar Es Salaam – al-Qaeda’s then biggest single attack against American targets.
That arrest – and those of other major UK-based suspects – triggered a mammoth extradition battle that lasted until 2012, when he was eventually flown to the US.
He went on to admit helping to plan the bombings.
His confession to a federal court in Manhattan confirmed that, working out of London, he had sent messages from journalists to Osama bin Laden – and also faxed news organisations confirming al-Qaeda had been behind the embassy attacks.
In October this year, US authorities approved Bary’s release after he had served 21 years of his 25-year sentence.
His release had been pencilled in for the end of the year, after US authorities took into account the 14 years he had spent in prison in the UK before his extradition and his good behaviour since then.
But it was brought forward slightly after a court heard evidence that he had a high risk of catching and dying from Covid, if he was kept in prison any longer.
In the October ruling sanctioning Bary’s release, US federal Judge Lewis Kaplan said that mercy should allow the offender to be with his family, given it may be the final period of his life.
“The [US] government concedes that the defendant has provided extraordinary and compelling reasons for his release,” said the judge.
“The government notes that the defendant was diagnosed as obese in 2019 and that, as of April 2020, his body mass index was 36, which is well above the threshold for obesity.
“On that basis, the government concedes that defendant has presented an extraordinary and compelling circumstance [for release].
Following his release from a federal jail, US immigration officials took him to a detention centre before putting him on a flight to the UK on Tuesday.
After arriving in London, Bary – who is Egyptian – is believed to have been taken to his family home.
The now 60-year-old’s US lawyer previously told journalists his client now wished to live a quiet life.
When prisoners convicted of terrorism offences are released from jail in the UK, the case for continuing to monitor them is considered by a team of police and probation officers, who also take into account intelligence from MI5.
Some offenders quietly get on with their lives and are eventually placed on the Security Service’s massive list of former terrorism suspects. Others who have maintained ties with extremists – or try to resurrect them after years in jail – are subject to ongoing investigations.
Next year, inquests will be held into how one released offender went on to murder two people in London in 2019.
Source : BBC News
