Jailed terrorists like Arena bomber Hashem Abedi will be prevented from creating 'no-go areas' inside prisons to radicalise others, Justice Secretary Dominic Raab said today.
He spoke out after it emerged the Islamic State fanatic was able to lead a violent Islamist gang while behind bars at a high-security 'prison within a prison'. In February, Abedi, jailed for life for helping his suicide bomber brother Salman Abedi murder 22 innocents, and two other jailed terrorists were convicted of attacking a prison officer at HMP Belmarsh in east London in May 2020.
The attack took place in Belmarsh’s High Security Unit (HSU) on May 11, 2020, just a few weeks after Hashem Abedi had been convicted over the May 2017 attack at the arena, which left 22 dead and a thousand others injured. Today (Wednesday) Justice Secretary Dominic Raab signalled a new push to stop inmates spreading poison and creating breeding grounds for terrorists as he announced a £1.2m plan to separate the most dangerous inmates from the the main prison population.
