Terror allegations prompt debate about inmate religious meetings
By DON THOMPSON, Associated Press Writer
Saturday, August 20, 2005
(08-20) 00:04 PDT SACRAMENTO, (AP) --
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The recent arrest of a prison parolee in Southern California illustrates a potential terrorism danger that federal officials have been warning about for months — that inmates in state prison systems are particularly susceptible to radical Islamist ideology.
Prison officials across the nation say they so far have seen more potential for recruitment than real threats, but said they have been monitoring Muslim groups since the 2001 terrorist attacks.
Authorities suspect the parolee, who was arrested by local police on charges unrelated to terrorism, is connected to two other men in a possible terrorist plot against Jewish and National Guard sites. Authorities said they believe the plan originated in a shadowy group known as Jamiyyat Ul Islam Is Saheeh in California State Prison, Sacramento.
Counterterrorism officials said the danger is not in the number of adherents to radical Islam but in the potential for small groups of dedicated believers to commit terrorist acts once they are released.
They point to Jose Padilla, an American Muslim convert arrested in 2002 after authorities say he planned a "dirty bomb" radiological attack after he left jail, and Richard Reid, who was convicted of attempting to blow up an American Airlines flight in 2001 with a shoe bomb.
"Nothing I have suggests there is a widespread Al Qaida recruitment movement within the prison system, but all you need is three or four to conduct an attack," said Gary Winuk, chief deputy director of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's Office of Homeland Security.
Prison officials nationwide "are all sort of hearing the chatter" about efforts to recruit inmates to extremist ideologies, said Martin Horn, commissioner of the New York City Department of Corrections. The department, he said, was "seeing evidence of efforts" by Islamic groups to recruit, but he declined to elaborate.
The state and city recently set up a Corrections Intelligence Fusion Center at Rikers Island to track problems, similar to another cooperative effort under way in the Washington, D.C., area: "At this point, it's primarily precautionary," Horn said.
Prison officials in other states, including Pennsylvania and Ohio, where Muslim inmates helped spark an 11-day fatal riot in 1993, said they have seen no signs of recruiting.
Federal antiterrorism experts said prison officials may be seeing few problems because the radicalized groups keep relatively quiet while they are incarcerated. Concern grows once they are released and their movements are no longer closely watched.
The U.S. Department of Justice's inspector general, in an April 2004 report, found that the federal Bureau of Prisons was doing inadequate background or ideology checks on its Muslim clerics. It also found that inmates and religious volunteers had "ample opportunity ... to deliver inappropriate and extremist messages without supervision."
Federal prisons rely heavily on volunteers or contractors recruited by Islamic groups for religious services because there is a shortage of full-time clerics, the report said.
The federal system has about 9,000 inmates, or 6 percent of the prison population, seeking Islamic religious services. California doesn't keep track of inmates by religion.
Groups with domestic or foreign terrorism ties have been a prison phenomenon for decades, said Steven L. Pomerantz, a former FBI assistant director and counterterrorism chief who lives in suburban Washington, D.C.
He said there was "no question ... we have a problem with militant Islam and its spread into the American prison system."
The Southern California case arose after 25-year-old Levar Haley Washington and another man were arrested July 5 by police in Torrance, a suburb southwest of Los Angeles, for investigation of robbing gas stations.
Authorities have said they suspect a list found in Washington's Los Angeles apartment contained potential terrorist targets, although Washington has not been charged with a terrorism-related crime.
The list included National Guard recruiting stations, synagogues and the Israeli Consulate.
Washington converted to Islam in the Sacramento-area prison before his Nov. 29 parole.
A message left after hours Friday for Washington's public defender, Jerome Haig, was not immediately returned.
Counterintelligence officials said California prisons are particularly troublesome because of their large and diverse populations. On Monday, two FBI agents from Washington, D.C., met with California prison wardens and warned about what they described as a growing national threat of Muslim extremism, said state prison and Homeland Security officials.
In California, inmates adhering to a radical brand of Islam are in every prison, officials said. But they said the problem pales compared to the danger posed by more established prison gangs such as the Mexican Mafia and Aryan Nation.
Chaplains' clerks or other inmates lead some religious ceremonies and sometimes preach a much more inflammatory version of Islam, said Lance Corcoran, executive vice president of the California Correctional Peace Officers Association.
"Oftentimes they become offshoots, and that's where the problem is," Corcoran said. Yet, "I find most Muslim inmates to be very respectful, to be very easy to deal with. We haven't seen that much militant behavior among the inmates in our system."
Shakeel Syed, a contract chaplain with the U.S. Bureau of Prisons, disputed the idea that prisons are producing Islamic militants. He joined representatives of Muslim groups Friday at a news conference in Los Angeles to say that chaplains can be part of the solution by steering inmates away from radical ideology.
"Those of us who are on the front lines battling extremism are not being utilized by law enforcement," said Salam Al-Marayati, executive director of the Muslim Public Affairs Council.
The California prison system has 30 full- and part-time Muslim chaplains, civil service employees who undergo background checks and are required to adhere to mainstream Islam, said Terry Thornton, spokeswoman for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.
Translators are called in if prison officials have suspicions, but department spokesman J.P. Tremblay said it is up to prison chaplains to make sure religious activities remain focused on spiritual issues.
The American Correctional Association is helping prison systems and county jails across the country establish ways to monitor inmates' religious activities while they are incarcerated, a process that started before the 2001 attacks.
"Within the prison system, while they can be recruited, they have a limited ability to do anything," said Joe Weedon, the organization's director of government affairs. The concern, he said, is what those inmates do once they're released. |
