Prisons to tackle radicalisation by creating jihadist jail for terrorists

Separation centre will accommodate extremists despite warnings it could give them special status

EXTREMISTS are being locked up in Britain’s first “jihadists’ jail” in an attempt to stop them radicalising other prisoners.

Up to a dozen terrorists have been jailed in a “separation centre” at HMP Frankland in Durham and isolated from other inmates.

The “prison within a prison” is designed to reduce the risk that extremists will try to radicalise those around them. The worst terrorists will have their own cells, exercise yard and visiting centre, making it easier for the authorities to monitor them. They will also be subjected to de-radicalisation programmes.

Two more units will open at other maximum-security jails, eventually housing 28 of the worst extremists.

Prisoners likely to be held in the new units include Michael Adebolajo, the murderer of Fusilier Lee Rigby, and Osman Hussein, the failed 21/7 bomber.

Sam Gyimah, prisons minister, said: “Extremism must be defeated wherever it is found. The most dangerous and subversive offenders are now being separated from those they seek to influence and convert – an absolutely crucial element of our wider strategy to tackle extremism in prisons and ensure the safety of the wider public.”

Until now, Islamist terrorists have been dispersed around the prison system but a review by Ian Acheson, a former prison governor, recommended that the most dangerous offenders should be isolated.

His 100-page report suggested a hardcore of jihadist prisoners was already engineering the “de facto separation” of Muslim and non-muslim prisoners. The number of radicals in jail has increased significantly in recent months as more jihadists return from Syria and Iraq. Prison governors have warned that in some prisons Muslim gangs force vulnerable inmates to convert to Islam.

In his review, published last year, Mr Acheson said intelligence showed there was a small number of people whose “behaviour is so egregious in relation to proselytising this pernicious ideology, this lethal, nihilistic death cult ideology, which gets magnified inside prison”.

The ex-governor, who looked at specialist units in Northern Ireland, the Netherlands, France and Spain, added: “There is justification for saying, for those small number of people, they need to be completely incapacitated from being able to proselytise to the rest of the prison population.”

Lord Carlile, a former independent reviewer of counter-terrorism legislation, welcomed the move but warned that it could be seen by some extremists as a sign that they have “special status”.

‘The most dangerous and subversive offenders are now being separated from those they seek to influence’

Ministers have also been warned that locking up extremists in special “jihadist wings” will be akin to opening up a British Guantánamo Bay.

The Prison Officers’ Association has claimed that isolating hate preachers and Islamist terror offenders would give them credibility and put warders at greater risk of being attacked. It said: “It gives them special status in their own minds and also creates leadership structures that may not be healthy. Yes, the unit should be available but it doesn’t mean that every terrorist prisoner should be held in one.”

The new units echo the approach of Maze prison in Northern Ireland, where IRA prisoners and loyalists were housed in different blocks.

The Government also announced that 4,500 prison officers received training to help them identify inmates with extremist views or who are vulnerable to radicalisation. So far 1,000 such prisoners have been identified.