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UK police arrest man over alleged plans for another terrorist attack
London: Police have arrested a man over fears he was planning to carry out a fresh terrorist attack, in a development that will put more pressure on MPs to rewrite the United Kingdom's controversial parole laws.
The arrest of the 34-year-old from Stoke-on-Trent, in central England, is significant because his possible plot was only discovered following a snap review of parole conditions triggered by Friday's attack near London Bridge.
Usman Khan killed two people and injured three others at a prisoner rehabilitation conference before being shot dead by police. The 28-year-old served only half his 16-year prison sentence for plotting to blow up the London Stock Exchange and was automatically released a year ago without any involvement by the UK Parole Board.
His release has triggered outrage in the UK in the final fortnight of the general election campaign and Prime Minister Boris Johnson has moved swiftly to pledge new laws to force judges to hand convicted terrorists a 14-year mandatory minimum sentence.
Jailed terrorists would have to serve "every day of the sentence, with no exceptions", he said.
Johnson revealed up to 74 other people convicted under terrorism offences had also been released from prison in circumstances similar to Khan.
The Ministry of Justice ordered a snap review of their parole conditions, which prompted the weekend raid on a home in Stoke-on-Trent.
"Officers from the West Midlands Counter Terrorism Unit have arrested a man in Stoke-on-Trent," a statement released by West Midlands Police said.
"A search warrant was conducted last night [November 30] in connection to a wider, on-going review of existing licence conditions of convicted terrorism offenders.
"As a result of a search of his home address, the 34-year-old was arrested on suspicion of preparation of terrorist acts. These searches continue.
"There is no information to suggest that the arrested man was involved in the incident at London Bridge on Friday."
Police said the man had been "recalled" to prison due to a suspected break of his parole conditions.
Johnson and Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn enter the final days of the general election campaign with radically different positions on how to handle convicted terrorists.
Asked whether convicted terrorists should serve their full sentences, Corbyn responded "not necessarily" and that it "depends on the circumstances and depends on the sentence".
"But crucially, it depends on what they've done in prison. There has to be an examination of how our prison services work and crucially, what happens when people are released from prison," he told Sky News.
The father of 25-year-old Jack Merritt, one of two people stabbed to death in the London Bridge terror attack, on Saturday warned against using the death of the Cambridge University graduate as a pretext for "more draconian sentences or for detaining people unnecessarily".
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