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.
READ MORE: Hashem Abedi says he 'will be leaving jail very soon' as he's caught smiling seconds before attack
Mr Raab admitted the challenge posed by Islamist prisoners had been under-estimated and that more robust approach was needed to deal with the 200 serving terrorist offenders and another 200 extremists with other convictions currently behind bars.
“We must not allow religious or cultural sensitives to deter us from clamping down and nipping in the bud early the precursor signs of radicalisation and ultimately terrorist recruitment. That must be stopped,” Mr Raab told LBC on Wednesday.
He added: "We start with the understandable respect for religious observance, we then find kitchens are no go areas for those that will not respect them, then there is a regime within a regime. We’ve got to cut it out far earlier so we don’t get anywhere near punishment being meted out."
Mr Raab admitted that only nine out of 28 in specialist separation centres, which were set up following an earlier review of the terrorist prisoners, were currently being used, but he promised this would change.
The minister said the government’s new 'Bill of Rights' would replace the Human Rights Act and would 'stop the legal attrition that we are already starting to see with terrorists and extremists claiming the right to socialise within prison, when they actually want to radicalise'.
Prison officer Paul Edwards, 57, said he thought he would be killed when he was set upon by Hashem Abedi, 24, Parsons Green Tube bomber Ahmed Hassan, 22, and Muhammed Saeed, 23, who spoke about carrying out a knife attack in London.
The HSU at HMP Belmarsh, which houses up to 47 prisoners deemed to be of a higher risk of escape, has accommodated some of the most dangerous terrorists in the country. Among them are Fusilier Lee Rigby’s killers Michael Adebolajo and Michael Adebowale.
Radical preachers Anjem Choudary and Abu Hamza have also served time at HMP Belmarsh, as has white supremacist Thomas Mair, who was jailed for murdering MP Jo Cox. Another jihadist prisoner, Mohiussunnath Chowdhury, admitted he met ‘like minded brothers’ while on remand at HMP Belmarsh awaiting trial, a court heard in 2019.
He was ‘surrounded by jihadis’ there who could give him advice and shared fantasies about how they would carry out terror attacks. Chowdhury was jailed for life with a minimum term of 25 years in July 2020 after plotting a gun and knife rampage at London tourist hotspots.
Mr Raab said a new team – set up at a cost of £1.2 million – will identify the most influential terrorists so they can be moved to one of the Prison Service’s three separation centres.
The move comes as a review of terrorist activity in jails in England and Wales by the Government’s independent reviewer of terrorist legislation, Jonathan Hall QC, said terrorism was the main threat in prisons.
"Prisons must not be allowed to become a second opportunity for committed terrorists whose attack plans are thwarted in the community," he said.
"More fundamentally, public confidence in the criminal justice system is shaken if terrorism occurs in prison or if people enter prison only to more dangerous: and the ability of prisons to function is gravely degraded if prison officers fear imminent terrorist attack."
In an interview on Times Radio, Mr Raab said he accepted 'pretty much fully' the review. "It’s one thing to say, of course, we need to respect the right for prisoners to be able to prepare halal food. It is another thing for them to say that kitchens are no-go areas for anyone that doesn’t respect their rules,” he said.
"That is the kind of finely balanced judgment call, decision, set of actions, that the prison service need to monitor and they do monitor it very carefully.
"But you can see it’s fiendishly difficult. What we’re saying and what Jonathan Hall says, and I think he’s right, is we have to nip in the bud much earlier the kind of stepping away from just respecting your own faith to controlling and coercing others, because that is the precursor to the kind of radicalisation that taints the well inside prisons."
