Hate preacher Anjem Choudary to be locked away in £75k a year isolation unit to stop him promoting violence behind bars
The hate-filled fanatic will be held in a newly-designed high-security prison wing to limit his contact with other lags
TERROR preacher Anjem Choudary is to be caged in a special isolation unit costing £75,000 a year to stop him promoting violence behind bars.
The hate-filled fanatic will be held in a newly-designed high-security prison wing to limit his contact with other lags.
Ministers have brought forward plans to set up secure, self-contained cell blocks to house extremists inside top-security jails.
It follows warnings that Choudary, convicted last week of inspiring 500 jihadists, will be just as dangerous inside prison.
Experts fear he will radicalise hordes of convicts, turning the jail where he is held into a Islamist training camp.
But under plans to be rushed out this week top-security prisons will be ordered to set up “specialist units” to detain the most dangerous extremists.
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High-risk convicts such as Choudary — currently in Belmarsh — will be kept apart from the rest of the prison population to prevent them from brainwashing vulnerable young inmates.
Justice Secretary Liz Truss told The Sun on Sunday: “The rise of Islamist extremism poses an existential threat to our society.
“I am committed to confronting and countering the spread of this poisonous ideology behind bars.
“Preventing the most dangerous extremists from radicalising other prisoners is essential to the safe running of our prisons and fundamental to public protection.”
Multiple units are to be set up in all high-security jails, as part of a major drive to disrupt radicalisation.
The move follows a probe into prison extremism by Ian Acheson which found that letting extremists mix with other lags was “potentially lethal”.
As well as housing those convicted of terror-related offices, the new units will hold a range of offenders with extremist views.
Their activities, combined with gang affiliations and organised crime networks, have created added problems for prison staff.
Until now, there have been complaints that the government had been too timid in getting to grips with the problem.
The authorities are said to be desperate to prevent Choudary, 49, from brainwashing vulnerable inmates.
The decision on whether to keep him in a separate unit will be made by officers at the jail where he will be held – which is being kept secret.
But it is unthinkable that they will allow him to mix freely with other inmates.
One expert said: “He’s an extremely dangerous man.
“He’s far more dangerous here in our free United Kingdom than he would be with ISIS.”
Dad-of-five Choudary will be sentenced in September, when he is expected to get ten years behind bars.
'Attack mag'
Twitter bosses let Choudary post his backing for attacks on French magazine Charlie Hebdo four years before gunmen killed 12 staff.
Steve Stalinsky, of the Middle East Media Research Institute, which monitored him for years, said it was shameful the firm took no action at the time. Twitter has suspended 235,000 accounts for promoting terrorism in the past six months.