BRITAIN: Britain’s Prison Dilemma: Issues and Concerns in Islamic Radicalization

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Jamestown Terrorism Monitor
Volume 6, Issue 6 (March 24, 2008) |

Britain’s Prison Dilemma: Issues and Concerns in Islamic
Radicalization

By Raffaello Pantucci
The increasingly rapid tempo of arrests and convictions of terrorist
plotters by the British security services has had the concurrent
effect of increasing the number of terrorist prisoners now
incarcerated in the United Kingdom’s penal system. This influx of
hardened terrorists into the system has started to alarm many in the
Ministry of Justice and the Home Office who are concerned about the
“disruptive impact of terrorists on prison regimes” (Guardian, March
3). Fears are focused on two main concerns: clashes between groups of
Muslim prisoners and others in the general prison population, and the
potential for high-profile terrorist prisoners to radicalize
susceptible imprisoned youths.

The Shoe Bomber and the Amir

These fears are not without some basis. It has been widely reported
that “shoe bomber” Richard Reid was radicalized while serving a
sentence for petty crime in Feltham Young Offenders Institution. The
“amir” of the July 21 group—responsible for the attempted bombings of
the London underground on July 21, 2005—Muktar Said Ibrahim, was
similarly radicalized during a period of incarceration at either
Huntercombe or Feltham Young Offenders Institution (BBC, July 29,
2005; Observer, July 15, 2007). Imams preaching extremism have been
blamed for radicalizing impressionable young men—in 2002, imams at
both Huntercombe and Feltham were suspended for such activities
(Observer, July 15, 2007).

British authorities are also concerned by behavior seen in prisons
across the Channel in continental Europe. The recent conviction in
Spain of 20 individuals for “Islamic terrorist activity”—though not on
the original charge of plotting to drive a truck bomb into the main
anti-terrorist courthouse—spawned from a plot that was led by
Abderrahmane Tahiri, also known as Mohamed Achraf, and was concocted
behind bars (Reuters Espana, February 27). Similarly, in 2005, French
police arrested Safe Bourada, an Algerian who had served time in
prison for plotting the 1990s metro attacks in Paris. Bourada was
charged with leading a terror cell he had recruited while serving his
sentence (Times, October 3, 2006; Le Monde, September 27, 2005).

Fears in the United Kingdom, however, date back to the Irish troubles,
when many remember the role played by detainees in HM Prison Maze
during the 1970s-1990s (BBC, October 23, 2007). Initially intended as
a place of incarceration, the penitentiary slowly developed into a
political rallying point, even going so far as to attract a visit by
Secretary of State for Northern Ireland Mo Mowlam as a part of the
peace talks. Furthermore, violence between different dissident groups
often spilled over beyond the prison walls, with some 29 prison
officers killed during the troubles (Observer, July 15, 2007).

Her Majesty’s Prison Belmarsh

In particular, there are concerns about the prison population in HM
Prison Belmarsh in Southeast London, where at least 151 of 916
prisoners attend Muslim religious services regularly [1]. One police
official described the prison to Jamestown as Britain’s own
“madrasah,” and there have been reports of guard intimidation: “When
an officer confronts a Muslim prisoner…he or she finds themselves
surrounded by five or six other inmates” (Observer, July 15, 2007).
Even more alarming, in July 2007, prison officers confiscated a laptop
computer from prisoner Tariq al-Dour, who was convicted alongside
Younis Tsouli, also known as Irhabi 007 (see Terrorism Focus, March
4), for allegedly using a mobile phone to connect to the internet and
building a terrorist-sympathetic website (Mirror, July 15, 2007). The
scuffle surrounding the seizure of the computer led to a riot between
prison officers and al-Qaeda sympathizers detained in the prison
(Observer, July 15, 2007).

There are currently around 130 prisoners convicted or on remand for
terrorist-related crimes in the British penal system, though this
number is likely to increase as a number of high-profile cases reach
conclusion (Guardian, March 3). This is in a prison population of
around 80,000, about 11 percent of which identify themselves as
Muslims (BBC, August 3, 2007). Given that not all of these prisoners
are held apart from the general population, the result is that
convicted terrorists can be incarcerated with criminals detained for
more petty crimes, a potentially dangerous combination. As Steve
Gough, vice-chairman of the Prison Officers Association, put it: “The
majority of the prison population is comprised of angry young men,
disenfranchised from society. It doesn’t matter if they are English,
Afro-Caribbean, or whatever. These people are ripe for
radicalization” (Observer, July 15, 2007).

Stories of radicals openly leading Muslim services have emerged. In
2006, the BBC learned that Khalid al Fawwaz, also known as Abu Omar,
who is currently fighting extradition to the United States for charges
pertaining to the 1998 embassy bombings in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam,
led prayers amongst Muslim prisoners while being detained in 2003 at
HM Prison Woodhill (BBC, May 4, 2006). In August 2007, the Prison
Officers Association expressed concern that Abu Qatada, a Jordanian-
Palestinian wanted on terrorism charges in eight countries, might have
been preaching in HM Prison Long Lartin—officers were unable to
understand exactly what Qatada was doing during “thrice daily communal
prayers” (BBC, August 3, 2007). Reflecting prison officers’ heightened
awareness of this problem, Dhiren Barot, also known as Essa al-Hindi—
mastermind of a series of plots including against potentially high-
profile financial targets in the United Kingdom and United States—has
complained that “any time the prison [official] [sic.] feels that I
may have found a ‘friend’ that I may be ‘overly’ socializing with,
more often than not the individual/s concerned are promptly shipped
out to other establishments. Why? For irrational fear of ‘sermonizing’
or ‘talent scouting’ of course because they believe I have an
arresting personality! The same goes for physical training with other
inmates” [2].

The Dispersal Strategy

One solution that has been attempted is dispersal, whereby prisoners
detained on al-Qaeda-related charges are sent to prisons around the
country to avoid their clustering and forming gangs in specific
prisons. A particularly high-profile instance of this has been the
decision to transfer prisoners Omar Khyam, the leader of a group of
would-be terrorist bombers broken up by 2004’s “Operation Crevice,”
Hussein Osman, one of the July 21 plotters and Dhiren Barot to HM
Prison Frankland in Durham, England.

Clashes between the extremists and other prisoners in HM Prison
Frankland have been frequent. In July 2007, Barot was assaulted by
other prisoners with scalding water and boiling oil, leading to
substantial burns and scarring (Observer, February 10; al-
istiqamah.com, November-December 2007). Then in October 2007, Omar
Khyam, who according to his lawyer has faced death threats from other
inmates [3], assaulted another prisoner in a similar manner resulting
in charges being brought against him (BBC, January 31).

Many prisoners charged with terrorist offenses have been spread over a
number of prisons nationally, but concerns remain surrounding the
possibility of deeper long-term radicalization or clashes between
gangs of extremists and other prisoners. As the national commissioning
plan for security prisons highlighted: “There is an urgent need to
understand the custodial behavior of this group of offenders and its
potential impact on other prisoners” (Guardian, March 3).

Government Response

In a speech at King’s College on January 17, Home Secretary Jacqui
Smith announced that “with the Ministry of Justice and the Prisons
Service we have set up an important program to understand and address
radicalization in our prisons system” [4]. This announcement is
something that the Prison Officers Association and others have long
been calling for. Its delay was the product of a recent shake-up in
the Home Office of the United Kingdom. Sparked by an immigration
scandal, then-Home Secretary John Reid announced in the ensuing
process that responsibility across the government for counter-
terrorism would be moved to an Office for Security and Counter-
Terrorism within the Home Office. Responsibility for prisons, formerly
a Home Office role, would now be handed off onto the newly formed
Ministry of Justice (BBC, March 29, 2007).

The Home Office has also introduced a four-strand counter-terrorism
strategy known as “Contest,” involving phases known as “Prevent,
Pursue, Protect and Prepare.” It was determined, however, that the
“Prevent” aspect—which deals with “tackling the radicalization of
individuals”—of the government’s strategy would be led by the
Department of Communities and Local Government. One can see how
radicalization in prisons falls tidily between the cracks in these
newly defined bureaucratic lines.

Conclusion

The potential risks from Britain’s prisons would seem to be real,
though not completely understood. While more rigid vetting has
hopefully prevented extremist imams from preaching to susceptible and
captive populations of incarcerated young men, the system is not
foolproof. The bigger problems remain of how to handle a growing long-
term prison population of hardened terrorists from proselytizing to
fellow prisoners and how to prevent a repetition of some of the
problems faced during the Irish troubles. When one considers that
Britain’s internal security service MI5 claims to have at least 2,000
terrorist plotters under surveillance, with possibly “double that
number” that they do not know about [5], it seems inevitable that the
problem of prison radicalization will be further magnified.

Notes

1. HM Prison Belmarsh, Annual Report of the Independent Monitoring
Board, July 2006-June 2007.

2. “Eesa Barot's Letter to the Ummah,” al-istiqamah.com.

3. “Abuse of Muslims in Frankland Prison,” Help the Prisoners campaign
pack, December 27, 2007; helptheprisoners.org.uk.

4. Home Secretary Jacqui Smith, “Our Shared Values – A Shared
Responsibility,” First International Conference on Radicalisation and
Political Violence, January 17, 2007; security.homeoffice.gov.uk.

5. Jonathan Evans, “Address to the Society of Editors by the Director
General of the Security Service,” November 5, 2007; mi5.gov.uk.



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