Australia proposes new laws to keep extremists in prison

The Australian government introduced legislation to Parliament on Thursday that would give authorities more power to keep extremists behind bars after they have served prison sentences if they are still considered dangerous.

The move is a response to a 2017 siege in which a gunman who once trained with Muslim extremists, Yacqub Khayre, killed a Melbourne apartment building receptionist and wounded three police officers months after being released early from prison.

The bill has been introduced as the government is accused of trampling human rights and press freedom by ratcheting up it national security laws in response to the evolving threat posed by Muslim extremists such as the Islamic State group.

The federal and state governments agreed in late 2015 to create nationally consistent so-called continuing detention orders to keep convicted terrorists in custody after they have served their sentences.

Attorney General Christian Porter said the proposed new law would close a loophole that prevented some extremists from being kept in custody.

The law would create a presumption against parole for convicted terrorists and terrorist supporters.

Khayre, a Somali-born refugee, took a woman hostage during a two-hour siege that ended with him being killed by police. The hostage escaped harm.

His convictions were for violent crimes unrelated to extremism. But under the proposed law, a judge deciding whether to parole him could have considered Khayre's acquittal in 2010 on charges that he plotted a suicide attack on a Sydney army base and evidence that established during his trial that he had trained with extremists in Somalia.

Porter told Parliament the laws would apply to those inmates serving time for other offenses, but who have "clearly demonstrated terrorist sympathies."