US Releases Terror Trainer, British Outraged

Controversy erupted in Britain today, in the wake of a Guardian report that the US had quietly released Mohammed Junaid Babar—the jihadi whose terrorist training camp produced the mastermind behind London’s 2005 suicide bombings that killed 52—after just four and a half years in jail. Babar was sentenced to “time served” in December, thanks to his “exceptional cooperation” with law enforcement.

The report has generated a lot of angry follow-ups, NPR reports. The lawyer for the families of the victims of that bombing compared it to the controversial release of Lockerbie bomber Abdel Baset al-Megrahi. “People can get four and a half years for burglary,” the father of one victim told the London Evening Standard. Labour lawmakers intend to grill British Foreign Secretary William Hague on the matter, while one conservative MP called for “a proper explanation from American authorities.” (More Mohammed Junaid Babar stories.)