The killer of London headteacher Philip Lawrence is to be freed within days after being granted parole.
Learco Chindamo stabbed Mr Lawrence to death outside St George’s Roman Catholic School in Maida Vale in December 1995 as the headteacher sought to protect a pupil being attacked by a gang.
The case led to a public outcry, but Chindamo, who was 15 at the time of the killing, has secured his release after a Parole Board panel decided he was no longer a threat to the public.
It means that Chindamo, 29, who was convicted of the murder in October 1996 and jailed indefinitely with a minimum 12-year tariff, will have served 14 years for the offence. He will be released from Hollesley Bay prison in Suffolk.
There were protests two years ago when an Immigration and Asylum Tribunal ruled that Chindamo, an Italian citizen, could not be deported after his release as it would breach EU immigration rules and his human rights to a family life.
The Home Office argued that Chindamo should be deported because he posed a “serious and present” threat to the public.
But the tribunal decided he was a reformed character after hearing glowing testimony from his prison deputy governor, who described him as a “changed person” and model prisoner.
Chindamo, the son of a Filipino mother and an Italian father, was born in Milan but moved to London with his mother and two brothers when he was six after his parents split up. A regular truant, he became a member of a gang called Venom, which modelled itself on the Chinese Triads.
Mr Lawrence, 48, was killed after trying to stop Chindamo’s gang attacking one of his pupils. His widow Frances, 62, — who was today unavailable for comment — set up an awards scheme in his honour in an attempt to prevent further such tragedies.
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