Introduction: Ministers have come under pressure to prevent British prisons from becoming recruiting grounds for Islamic extremists. IAN Cobain reports
Muslim clerics preaching in British prisons were told on Friday that they were being watched carefully after two were suspended for allegedly delivering anti-American sermons to young inmates after the 11 September attacks.
One imam was apparently caught praising the hijackers to inmates at Feltham Young Offender Institution in West London, where shoe bomber Richard Reid converted to Islam while serving a sentence for petty crime in the early 1990s.
A second cleric was excluded from Aylesbury Young Offender Institution in Buckinghamshire, north of London, after passing around the transcript of a broadcast on a Muslim radio station that included inflammatory comments by Osama bin Laden. Ministers came under pressure on Friday to prevent British prisons from becoming recruiting grounds for Islamic extremists.
Abdul Haq Baker, chairman of the south London mosque attended by Reid, said he believed some of the clerics entering prisons would be barred from his place of worship because of their extreme views.
Martin Narey, the Prison Service director-general, said: "We watch very carefully the behaviour of imams. Two have been suspended in the last few months because they have made inappropriate comments about 11 September." Mr Narey said a "reasonably tolerant" attitude to all views was adopted in prisons, but added that imams had been warned after the 11 September attacks that their comments would be monitored.
"We have made it very plain to all our imams that there are certain comments about being critical of the USA or in praise of what happened on 11 September which are utterly unacceptable," he said.
The imam at Feltham, Abdul Rahman Quresh, was suspended on 15 November for "alleged unprofessional behaviour", which included making anti-American comments. He is reported to have referred to the "big devil America" during sermons, and prison officers reported finding literature in cells that described America as "the great evil, which must be wiped out".
Mr Quresh has been suspended pending an investigation. His father is reported to have been an imam at Feltham while Reid was at the institution.
The imam at Aylesbury, Ahmad Bilal, was excluded on 1 October after an investigation found that he had been handing around inflammatory radio broadcast transcripts. He had been working at the prison for less than three months.
The imam at Belmarsh maximum security prison in southeast London was also suspended, on 14 September, amid allegations that he had links to Islamic fundamentalists. He has been cleared by a Prison Service investigation, but must undergo security checks before being reinstated. The Prison Service dismissed reports on Friday that prison officers at 10 jails around the country had complained about imams making anti-American comments.
Mr Narey said: "Overwhelmingly, imams make a huge contribution. If someone converts to Islam, or returns to their faith, it is more likely that when they are released they will go home to a stable community, be accepted by the mosque in that community, which means it is less likely they will commit crimes, and that is very important."
There are more than 100 imams serving the 137 prisons and young offender institutions in England and Wales. At least three work full time, while others are paid between £11.06 and £13.18 an hour.
(The Times, London.)