UK police fears tensions on release of jailed radical imam

Britain's security services are preparing for the release of a Pakistani-origin radical Islamist imam from jail later this year, fearing heightened community tensions.

UK-born Anjem Choudary who was jailed at the Old Bailey court in London in September 2016 for radical preaching and urging Muslims to support the terrorist group Islamic State (ISIS), is expected to be released on licence, or under surveillance, in October.

The 51-year-old is reportedly being held in a "separation centre" at Her Majesty's Prison (HMP) Frankland in County Durham, with the release expected at the half-way mark of his five-and-a-half-year prison sentence.

"It is likely to encourage some of his followers to become more vocal and defiant in their extremist behaviour," 'The Sunday Times' quoted a Scotland Yard source as saying.

"The police are watching far-right and Islamist networks around the country, and we're reassuring the Muslim community that we're taking pre-emptive steps to clamp down on disorder," the source said.

A government official told the newspaper the licence conditions had not been decided but were likely to be tough: "He'll certainly be watched day and night by the security services."