Jihadists radicalising inmates

Accounts of Muslim inmates being radicalised by Islamic extremists held in British jails sound a warning for our prison authorities. The case of “Jack”, a recent convert to Islam who, as reported by The Times, had been convicted of violent offences but had no previous link to Islamic extremism, shows the British system is breeding more terrorists. Immediately after being sent to a prison in Milton Keynes, north of London, Jack claimed, he was “targeted and groomed” by extremist fellow inmates. He said he was exposed to banned jihadist literature and took part in covert sharia trials in which other inmates, whose Islamic religious observance was deemed inadequate, were sentenced to beatings. Daily life in the prison, he said, was centred on intense hatred for Western lifestyles and the`` need to overthrow democracy. He also was pressured, he claimed, into pledging allegiance to Islamic State.

In the aftermath of last month’s deadly London Bridge terrorist attack carried out by Usman Khan, who spent six years in jail for terrorist offences before being released, Jack’s claims could hardly be more timely or more pertinent to those involved in the fight against jihadist terrorism. They accord with the findings by former British prison governor Ian Acheson, who warned “charismatic” prisoners “acting as self-styled emirs” were exerting a controlling and radicalising influence on the wider Muslim prison population. Proselytising jihadist inmates should be isolated from other prisoners, he said.

As national security editor Paul Maley reported, there have been similar instances of extremist jihadist militancy spreading its evil even in some of our own most secure prisons. Last year Maley reported that a Muslim extremist known as “the Carver” had carved the Islamic State symbol E4E (“an eye for an eye”) into the forehead of another prisoner. The assault took place after the victim reportedly stopped praying with others. The ballooning population of radicalised inmates in our already overcrowded prison system has created fears the long-term risk to the community lies not from fighters returning from the Middle East but from extremist inmates already here. For good reason, Britons are now looking to Boris Johnson to make good his campaign pledge to end early prison release for terrorists.