Jihadist who plotted to bomb London Stock Exchange is being released

An Islamic terrorist who hatched a bomb plot alongside the London Bridge attacker Usman Khan is going to be free from prison within weeks.

The Parole Board said Nazam Hussain, who was jailed in 2012 for his part in plans to blow up the London Stock Exchange, was suitable to be released.

Hussain, 35, and his gang were behind an al-Queda-inspired plot to blow up the stock exchange on Christmas Eve. 

The plans involved a coordinated bomb-and-gun attack similar to the November 2008 attacks in Mumbai, which killed 175 people and injured more than 300.

At the time of his jailing, Hussain was considered as dangerous as his co-conspirator Usman Khan, 28, who went on to kill Jack Merritt, 25, and 23-year-old Saskia Jones at Fishmongers' Hall in central London in November 2019. 

Hussain was initially freed from prison in 2019 but put back behind bars just months later when police found two knives taped together inside a suitcase at his house, in the wake of Khan's Fishmonger's Hall attack.

Now they want to give him another chance at being released back into the British public.

In a document detailing the decision, published on Thursday, the Parole Board said: 'The panel directed re-release as it was satisfied that it was no longer necessary for the protection of the public that Mr Hussain be confined.'