A terror gang 'lynchpin' inspired by al Qaeda to hatch a plot to blow up the London Stock Exchange has been cleared for release.
Mohammed Chowdhury, 33, has been freed and recalled to prison in the past.
The Parole Board has now deemed him no longer a threat to society.
Chowdhury was jailed in 2012 with London Bridge attacker Usman Khan, who was then given dispensation to travel to London alone in 2019 for a rehabilitation conference.
Khan killed Cambridge graduates Saskia Jones, 23, and Jack Merritt, 25, before police shot him dead. He was still wearing his electronic tag.
Chowdhury had been given an extended determinate sentence with a term of 13 years and eight months for the 2010 plot to blow up the Stock Exchange.
He was released first in 2018, then again in 2019 on parole, but recalled twice. Now he has been judged as fit for release after he was judged to have moved away from extremism while in custody.
A spokesperson for the Parole Board confirmed today that a panel had directed the release of Chowdhury.
"Our decisions are solely focused on what risk a prisoner could represent to the public if released and whether that risk is manageable in the community," they added.
“A panel will carefully examine details of the original crime, and any evidence of behaviour change, as well as explore the harm done and impact the crime has had on the victims.
“Members read and digest hundreds of pages of evidence and reports in the lead up to an oral hearing.
"Evidence from witnesses such as probation officers, psychiatrists and psychologists, officials supervising the offender in prison as well as victim personal statements may be given at the hearing.
"It is standard for the prisoner and witnesses to be questioned at length during the hearing which often lasts a full day or more."
They added: "Protecting the public is our number one priority." Chowdhury was part of a gang that planned to detonate a home-made pipe bomb.
The group aimed to send five bombs in the post during the run up to Christmas 2010 and discussed launching a co-ordinated shooting and bombing attack in a "Mumbai-style" atrocity.
A hand-written target list found at Chowdhury's Poplar home contained the names and addresses of then Mayor Boris Johnson, two rabbis, the American Embassy and the Stock Exchange.
Five other members of the gang admitted lesser terror crimes at Woolwich Crown Court in 2012.
Chowdhury, the lynchpin of the gang, was seen by security service officers surveying tourist sites including Big Ben, Westminster Abbey and the London Eye.
Bugged conversations showed he was planning to plant a bomb in a Stock Exchange lavatory.
The note, bearing Chowdhury's fingerprints, was found on his computer desk in the bedroom of his home when he was seized in December 2010.
Chowdhury and three others pleaded guilty to intending to commit "an act of terrorism, engaging in conduct in preparation to produce and detonate an explosive device in the London Stock Exchange".
Born in Bangladesh, he lived in east London having come to the UK in 2004 and had been given indefinite leave to remain.
Chowdhury was assessed as dangerous by the judge who sentenced him and the other Stock Exchange plotters.
Mr Justice Wilkie said: “They were determined to carry out some high profile violent terrorist action even though untrained and, in effect, complete novices and without any meaningful consideration of how they might avoid the security at their chosen target.
“Chowdhury is a compulsive self-publicist and is incapable of masking his true intentions.”
He was said to have brought together the nine jihadists. They were split into groups in Stoke, where Khan was based, Cardiff and London, and Chowdhury was a “convener or conduit”, the court was told.
He was later recorded going through instructions on “how to make a bomb in the kitchen of your mom” from the Al-Qaeda magazine Inspire, prompting his arrest in December 2010.
The court was told that Chowdhury was in touch with the convicted hate preacher Anjem Choudary and was an administrator for the Bangladeshi jihadist groups Authentic Tawheed and Sharia for Bangladesh. Chowdhury had been freed twice in the past, but the reasons were not given for his recall.
