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Al-Qaeda inspired Roshonara Choudhry could be walking the streets within months after being jailed for 15 years for her kitchen knife attack on Labour minister Stephen Timms
THE jihadist who stabbed Labour minister Stephen Timms is making a fresh bid for freedom.
Roshonara Choudhry had been radicalised when she was a university student, and attempted to murder her local MP in 2010. She was jailed for life at the Old Bailey but has now passed the minimum 15-year sentence imposed. Now 36, her latest application for parole is her second and she could be walking the streets in months.
Last night terrorism experts said she still poses a risk. Colonel Richard Kemp, the Army’s former chief in Afghanistan, told us: “This individual is highly dangerous. I am seriously concerned she has not changed her ways. She manipulated those around her to the point she was able to launch such a horrendous attack. I fear she can never be reformed properly.”
Weeks before trying to kill Mr Timms on May 14, 2010, Choudhry had quit her English degree course at King’s College London, where she had been expected to get a first. The Muslim, then 21, became radicalised after watching online sermons by terror preachers and decided to kill Mr Timms because he supported the Iraq war.
Choudhry stabbed the East Ham MP twice in the stomach with a three-inch kitchen knife as she smiled and pretended to shake his hand at his constituency surgery. An aide and a security guard stopped her and emergency surgery saved Mr Timms, then 55, whose liver was sliced.
After being charged, Choudhry refused to see family, friends or have visitors, and isolated herself in prison. The judge at her trial said she would continue to be a danger to MPs after hearing she had listed those who voted for the Iraq war, adding: “You do not suffer from any mental disease. You have simply committed evil acts coolly and deliberately.”
Mr Timms said later: “My real worry is that a very bright young woman with everything to live for would reach the conclusion that she should throw it all away by attempting to kill the local MP.”
A report into her time in prison said she had not raised any concerns and had attended anti-extremism courses. In 2023 the then Justice Secretary Dominic Raab refused a Parole Board recommendation to move her to an open prison. The next parole panel could decide to free her or move her to an open jail.
A spokesman for the board said: “The review has been directed to an oral hearing but there is no date yet.” A source added: “As this is the second attempt, there are fears she will be released. Nobody could see what she was planning, that shows how manipulative she was.”
Mr Timms, 69, now minister for social security and disability, has revealed Choudhry had written to him several times from jail. In a previous interview, he explained: “In the third of them, she says she’s sorry about what happened. So we’re in a restorative justice process which may lead to me meeting her before she’s released. I’d welcome that.”