Islamist preacher Anjem Choudary is likely to be held in an anti-extremism unit to stop him radicalising inmates as he embarks on a life sentence behind bars for running a banned terrorist organisation.
Being kept apart from other prisoners in a separation centre will not be a new regime for the 57-year-old, who previously boasted about the experience.
His trial heard last month how during a lecture he told the class: “When I went to prison here in this country in 2016 they opened up a separation centre for me and my dear brothers because they had become so worried about our Dawah (spreading the word of Islam).
If they never form the view that you can safely be released, you will remain in prison for the rest of your life
Mr Justice Mark Wall
“We never carried swords, we never carried guns or knives. They said to me, they said you are the number one radicaliser in Britain they said, glory to Allah.
“You know they expected me to be unhappy with that; I’m like … that is a badge of honour for me.”
As he was sentenced on Tuesday, the judge told Choudary he must serve every day of the minimum term he set behind bars before he can apply for parole, by which time he will be at least 85 years old.
The Parole Board will then decide whether he is safe to be released, but “I cannot envisage them reaching such a decision without the most cogent evidence of a change of mindset by you. If they never form the view that you can safely be released, you will remain in prison for the rest of your life”, Mr Justice Mark Wall said.
Separation centres were set up in 2017 as part of the then-government’s bid to clamp down on extremism behind bars, with the plans gathering pace after a review warned Islamist extremism was a growing problem in England and Wales’ prisons.
The so-called jails within jails aimed to prevent prisoners with extreme views from radicalising fellow inmates and posing a national security risk, supporting acts of terrorism or disrupting order and discipline of the prison.
Designed to hold the most subversive extremist offenders, measures intended to dilute their influence are deployed including monitoring their communications and financial transactions as well as any inappropriate materials intercepted.
Prisoners can also be stopped from hoarding books if it is suspected this is to hide extremist material and terrorist prisoners can no longer take leadership roles in religious services.
Referrals to place prisoners in a separation centre can be made by the Prison and Probation Service, police or other law enforcement bodies.
Staff receive specialist training and guidance for managing terrorist offenders and preventing radicalisation in custody so they know how to swiftly identify and act to stop any unacceptable behaviour.
Initially only a small number of offenders were held in the units when they first opened, with the centres set up at HMP Frankland in County Durham, Woodhill in Buckinghamshire, and Full Sutton in Yorkshire.
In total, they were initially intended to hold 28 inmates.
A prison watchdog report published in 2022 found that while the centres were designed for prisoners from any political or religious viewpoint, at that point they had only held Muslim men.
Days after the report was published, then-justice secretary Dominic Raab announced that dangerous and influential terrorist prisoners would be isolated from the main prison population to prevent them radicalising other inmates, in the wake of high-profile cases involving extremist prisoners.
Usman Khan was a terrorist prisoner out on licence when he carried out the 2019 Fishmongers’ Hall attack, killing two people.
Khairi Saadallah, who was given a whole life sentence in 2021 for murdering three men in a terror attack in a Reading park a year earlier, had been befriended by a radical preacher while serving an earlier prison term.
A new team – set up at a cost of £1.2 million – would identify the most influential terrorists so they could be moved to one of the three centres as Mr Raab insisted the government would not allow “cultural and religious sensitivities” to prevent it taking firm action on terrorism.
Details emerged about conditions in the Frankland separation unit, the first to open, in 2018.
The prison’s Independent Monitoring Board (IMB) described the centre as a “microcosm” of a normal prison.
At the time, the assessment found that the “compact nature” of the centre gave rise to a “claustrophobic feeling”.
But, according to a different report published in 2019, some inmates held in the separation centres complained that isolating them from the main prison population is an “injustice”.
The latest available Home Office figures show that, as of September last year, there were 246 terrorist offenders in British prisons.
The majority of which (65%) held Islamist-extremist views.
Just over a quarter (26%) were categorised as holding extreme right-wing ideologies while 9% were considered to hold “other” ideologies.
