The Islamist preacher Anjem Choudary remains a dangerous threat ahead of his imminent release from jail, the prisons minister has warned, as plans to train an “elite corps” of Muslim chaplains to de-radicalise extremist inmates were unveiled.

In an interview with the London Evening Standard, Rory Stewart said Choudary, who was linked to one of the men who killed the soldier Lee Rigby, and the London Bridge attacker, Khuram Butt, remained a “deeply pernicious, destabilising influence”.

Choudary, 51, is due to be released on licence in October as he approaches the mid-way point of his five-and-a-half year sentence for encouraging Muslims to join Islamic State. He was sentenced in September 2016, having already spent five months in custody.

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Around 25 Muslim chaplains are to receive a week’s training on how to deal with prisoners with Islamist extremist ideologies as part of a pilot to be launched before the end of the year, the Ministry of Justice confirmed.

Asked about Choudary’s imminent release, Stewart told the Standard: “He is somebody that I would put into the category I have just mentioned – somebody who was not given a sentence of enormous length but somebody who is a genuinely dangerous person ... we will be watching him very, very carefully.”

Guardian analysis revealed in June that the police and security services face a surge in the number of convicted terrorists released from prison, prompting warnings about the unique threats posed by extremists back on the streets.

More than 80 of the 193 terms issued for terrorism offences between 2007 and 2016 were set to run out by the end of the year, the analysis showed. However, the number of individuals released would be much higher as prisoners are eligible for release halfway through their sentence.

Ian Acheson, a former prison governor, published a review in 2016 into Islamic extremism in prisons, which he found to be a growing problem. The Ministry of Justice previously said it judges about 700 prisoners to be a risk due to their extremist views. It is understood that the 700 figure was an overall estimate of all inmates linked to any form of extremism, including Islamist or far-right ideologies. Other inmates held for non-terrorism offences but deemed to be an extremism risk were also counted in the figure.

There are already about 300 Muslim chaplains working in prisons. Stewart’s proposal would lead to one or two specially-trained chaplains assigned to prisons on a regional basis.

A Home Office programme under the Prevent banner has also been developed for individuals who are already engaging in terrorism to disengage and reintegrate safely back into society. The desistance and disengagement programme is focused on those who have already engaged in terrorist-related activity. This can mean people in prison – or recently released – for terrorist-related offences, as well as people who have returned from Syria or Iraq.

Choudary was sentenced for urging Muslims to support Isis in a series of talks posted on YouTube. He was convicted alongside his acolyte Mohammed Rahman, 33, who was also sentenced to five years and six months in prison.

Choudary and his extremist groups are believed to have motivated at least 100 people from Britain to pursue terrorism, including organisations committed to campaigns of murder against the west, the Guardian previously revealed.

Individuals connected to Choudary and his groups who turned to terrorism include Michael Adebolajo, one of the men who murdered Lee Rigby on a London street in 2013. He is also linked to foiled plots to kill in the UK, youngsters who have fled to join Isis in Syria, leaving their families distraught, and the alleged inspiration of violence across Europe.