London Bridge killer freed less than seven years into 16-year terror sentence

The London Bridge attacker was a convicted terrorist released less than seven years into a 16-year prison sentence for a plot to bomb the London Stock Exchange.

Usman Khan, 28, killed a man and a woman in the knife rampage on Friday afternoon and injured three other people, who are being treated in hospital.

He was attending a conference on prisoner rehabilitation organised by University of Cambridge-associated Learning Together at Fishmongers' Hall and "threatened to blow up" the building just before 2pm.

Armed with two knives and wearing a fake suicide vest, Khan was tackled by members of the public – including one with a narwhal tusk – before he was shot dead by police on London Bridge.

Metropolitan Police Assistant Commissioner Neil Basu said he had been living in the Staffordshire area and officers are searching an address in the county.

He said police were "not actively seeking anyone else" over the attack.

In February 2012, Khan, who had been based in Stoke-on-Trent, was handed an indeterminate sentence for public protection over his part in an al Qaida-inspired terror group that plotted to bomb the London Stock Exchange and build a terrorist training camp on land in Pakistan-controlled Kashmir owned by his family.

A list of other potential targets included the names and addresses of the Dean of St Paul's Cathedral in London, then London mayor Boris Johnson, two rabbis, and the American Embassy in London.

But the sentence for Khan, along with two co-conspirators, was quashed at the Court of Appeal in April 2013 and he was given a determinate 16-year jail term.

Prisoners are usually released halfway through a determinate sentence but Khan had served less than seven years when he was freed on licence in December last year.

The Parole Board said it had no involvement in his release and that Khan "appears to have been released automatically on licence (as required by law), without ever being referred to the board".