Mirror
March 31, 2014
A top-security prison where almost half the inmates are Muslims is a breeding ground for Islamic extremists, experts warned last night.
The Sunday People reveals that category A Whitemoor jail, where terror fanatics are serving life sentences for plotting mass murder in the UK, is a recruiting centre for al Qaeda, according to alarmed staff, prison inspectors and politicians.
An astonishing 42 per cent of convicts at the prison near March, Cambs, follow the Islamic faith.
The figure is in stark contrast to the overall UK population in which just five per cent are Muslim.
Violent jihadists in Whitemoor are recruiting vulnerable inmates , pressurising them into converting to Islam before joining terrorist groups, the Government has been warned.
One prison officers’ union source said: “Whitemoor is now effectively run by Muslims, many of whom are Jihadis.”
Other top-security prisons are not far behind, with 33 per cent Muslim inmates at Belmarsh in south-east London and 20 per cent at Full Sutton near York and Long Lartin, Worcs.
Last night Labour’s shadow justice secretary Sadiq Khan told the Sunday People: “The Government hasn’t even noticed these alarming figures.
“While the Justice Secretary is busy with gimmicks he has no idea if and to what extent radicalisation is taking place in our prisons.
“The Government has failed to take action on this. In jails like Whitemoor the Chief Inspector is on record warning of the risks of radicalisation.
“The Government needs to wake up to this problem before it’s too late.”
Figures released by the Ministry of Justice last week show there are now 11,729 Muslims in British jails, the highest figure ever and equivalent to one in seven of all inmates.
The highest number are at Whitemoor which has a total population of around 500 of Britain’s most dangerous offenders, 210 of them Muslims.
Terrorists there include Zia Al Haq, 35, of Wembley, north London, who was sentenced to 18 years in 2007.
Al Haq was in a sleeper cell plotting to bomb a London Tube tunnel, pack a limousine with explosives and set off a dirty radiation device.
Another terrorist at Whitemoor is Nezar Hindawi, 60, serving 45 years.
He planted a bomb in his pregnant fiancee’s hand luggage on a flight from London Heathrow to Tel Aviv in 1986, which could have killed 375.
Sources inside the prison officers’ union say Whitemoor has become a centre of radicalisation and many Muslim inmates have left as “fully signed-up members of al-Qaeda.”
At Belmarsh Prison the problem is almost as acute with one in three inmates calling themselves Muslim.
Current inmates include Michael Adebolajo, 28, and Michael Adebowale, 22, who butchered soldier Lee Rigby in Woolwich, south London last year.