Author:
Publication: The Times of India
Date: December 30, 2001
Britain's prison service said on
Friday it had suspended three Muslim clerics for making inappropriate comments
about the September 11 attacks in the U.S.
"We have made it very plain to all
our imams that there are certain comments about being critical of the U.S.
or in praise of what's happened on September 11 which are utterly unacceptable",
prison service director Martin Narey told BBC radio.
A prison service spokeswoman said
three imams had been suspended between September and November for making
inappropriate comments.
The service did not say what the
comments were, or identify the men. But it said they worked at Belmarsh
Prison in southeast London, Aylesbury Young Offenders' Institution, northwest
of London, and Feltham Young Offenders Institution in west London.
Feltham reportedly once housed Richard
C. Reid, the man accused of trying to blow up a trans-Atlantic flight with
explosives hidden in his shoes. Mr. Reid reportedly converted to Islam
while in prison. Abdul Haqq Baker, the head of the London mosque Reid attended,
said Islamic radicals targeted young Muslim converts at his mosque. (AP)
