Extremists hold trials in UK prisons
Islamist extremists in Britain’s prisons are holding makeshift Sharia trials, circulating banned books and openly grooming young Muslim inmates, The Times has been told.
A former prisoner who claims that he took part in Sharia courts and punishment beatings has given a detailed account of how he came to join a group of prisoners at HMP Woodhill, Milton Keynes, who pledged allegiance to Isis.
The revelations have prompted security experts to call for a fundamental review of terrorist radicalisation in jails across Britain.
The issue came under scrutiny last month when Usman Khan, 28, a Category A terrorist prisoner freed on licence, murdered two people at London Bridge before being killed by police.
Richard Walton, former head of Scotland Yard’s Counter Terrorism Command, and Ian Acheson, who led a previous review of jail extremism, said that reforms to tackle the problem had stalled and the ability of the Prison Service to deal with it was in question.
Acheson’s 2016 report described Islamist extremism in jails as a ‘‘growing problem’’ and outlined measures to counter it. His ideas have met with resistance, however.
The former prisoner, who provided an account of his radicalisation and has been given the pseudonym Jack, said those who recruited him included a follower of the hate preacher Anjem Choudary and claimed that he had access to recordings of talks by the al-Qaeda ideologue Anwar al-Awlaki.
The other hardliners were inmates who had been converted in prison and had histories of violent offending.
The man, who is in his 20s and free on licence, said he found himself sitting in judgment at a cell-block court over two other prisoners who had supposedly disrespected Islam by drinking alcohol. He said that one of the men in the room, Brusthom Ziamani, 24, who was jailed in 2015 for plotting to behead a British army cadet, called for a punishment beating, which then took place. He also told how he fell in with extremists after being approached by the ‘‘overbearing’’ self-appointed prison ‘‘emir’’ as he waited in the chaplaincy department for Friday prayers to begin.
Jack said that since leaving prison he had received messages from inmates offering assistance to travel to Syria. He said that he had sought spiritual help and remained a practising but peaceful Muslim, adding: ‘‘I chose to leave that life.’’
The number of prisoners describing themselves as Muslim has increased significantly in the past 20 years. This year there were 13,000 Muslim inmates in England and Wales, making up 16 per cent of the prison population. In 2002 8 per cent of prisoners said that they were Muslim.
Robert Buckland, the justice secretary, said the former inmate’s account was ‘‘very concerning’’ but insisted that in the past four years ‘‘a great deal of time, effort and investment has gone into bearing down on the malign effects of extremism behind bars’’.
Acheson said, however, that the prisoner’s description of his experiences confirmed his fears that the prison and probation service ‘‘is still not capable of managing a serious threat to our national security’’.
He added: ‘‘I’m disappointed that many of the recommendations I made in 2016 to robustly respond to this threat do not seem to have been adopted. This implies a continuing serious failure of leadership and will to confront terrorism that I identified.
‘‘I urge the government to return to these recommendations as a starting point to check on the reality of counterextremism capability. If the Prison Service is not equal to the task of managing this lethal and destructive risk it should be divested of that responsibility.’’
Walton, a senior fellow at the Policy Exchange think tank, said that Michael Gove’s departure from the Ministry of Justice in 2016 had been ‘‘extremely untimely’’.
The former policeman added: ‘‘[Gove] was intent on fully implementing the Acheson review and addressing the problem of radicalisation in jails across the country. His successor [Liz Truss] did not treat this issue with the same urgency and appeared less keen on fully implementing the Acheson recommendations.’’
‘‘The Ministry of Justice should now revisit the problem of prison radicalisation in light of the recent attack. A full, transparent review of prison radicalisation and the measures in place to address it is now needed’’.
Walton added: ‘‘It is unsurprising that radicalisation continues to be a significant challenge, owing to the success in recent years of convicting high numbers of Islamist terrorists for plotting attacks in the UK and overseas.
‘‘Regrettably, it is not uncommon for covert counterterrorism investigations to start within prisons – they provide a conducive environment for the most hardline convicted Islamists to plot and conspire.’’ – The Times