I never thought I could thank the BBC for a news item, but their report on the US 'supermax' prisons have left this opponent of the death penalty even more convinced that civilized countries should not execute prisoners. A great country like the USA must rise above killing its prisoners.
Okay I can't always follow my convictions. Those who went after nazi murderers of the Holocaust after WWII executing those they came across were justified. Likewise the putting down of the unbelievably brutal murderers of the Fogel family who smiled and joked in court when their crimes were put to them would be fitting. They cruelly killed a whole family in Itamar, slitting a baby's throat. Similarly that other child murderer Kuntar who smashed the head of a 3 year old girl on a rock after killing her parents. They should be put down like the crazed animals they are.
Reflecting the state of civilization in the arab world, Kuntar is feted as a hero, and of course visited in his new Lebanese home, hugged and kissed by that great peace partner palestinian arab president Abbas. Kuntar was released in the Gilad Shalit swap. Such people must never be released but treated as in the USA. Once swallowed by the USA 'correction' system, you remain digested until Uncle Sam decides to puke you out. I'm glad i'm not the prison warder who had to unlock Kuntar's cell, as I believe I would have been tempted to empty a gun into his satanic head.
So, apart from such exceptions i'm against killing prisoners, as long as you can be sure they will receive the prison sentence allotted by the court, something that is never certain in Israel where the majority of arab mass murderers and torturers of innocents have been freed in one deal or another.
The BBC has now explained just why four notorious islamist murderers and propagandists of jihad in the UK were so loathe to be extradited to the USA. Until now I couldn't understand, but for those who 'love death' as much as we value life, it's easy to understand why a US prison is the ultimate horror.
The US Supermax prisons do seem a living hell. The BBC tries its best to show just how bad they are to evoke public sympathy out of the British reader and anger at the USA. But the BBC liberal collaborators of the jihad nightmare don't understand that the British are heartily sick of these parasites. A typical route for a jihadi was to claim asylum in the UK after causing trouble back home, and then expecting the ever patient British taxpayer to fund his jihadi lifestyle for him and his family through the benefits system. They never dreamed of thanking the humanistic system that gave them refuge, but plotted how to undermine it, along with the Saudi Arabian wahabite preachers who indoctrinate young minds all over Britain and the rest of the world with their poison.
It was nice to see that the European Court of Justice agreed with the British courts that the Supermax was not inhumane, considering the dangers that Abu Hamza and his merry men pose to society.
I'm sure that US justice now having caught up with these animals will after their trial deliver them safely to their new home where they will have all the quiet study time they need to learn the koran. I think the real torture will be not being allowed to watch snuff videos of American and British soldiers being blown up. No Jihadist pornography and not even being allowed to take one of the four wives along to keep the cell clean and administer to all the other needs of an honorable jihadist.
So my very best wishes to Abu H. who appeared in court without his prosthetic hook. The poor fellow can chalk that up as another humiliation and insult to islam whilst he's peeking at the sky through his slit of a window.
And rather than counting sheep to get to sleep at night, he will be able to count up to 72, over and over again.
Best thing of all is, islam doesn't allow suicide, so there really is no way out for these Allah fearing gentlemen.
I wish them all a long life.
By Sean Clare and Daniel Nasaw in Washington
BBC News
No inmate has ever escaped from an ADX prison
The European Court of Human Rights has rejected arguments by Babar Ahmad
and three other terror suspects that they could face ill treatment in a
"supermax" American high-security prison.
But what is life like in the "Alcatraz of the Rockies" and why was the court not convinced?
The Administrative Maximum facility (ADX), or "supermax"
prison in Florence, Colorado, holds some of the most notorious American
terrorists and murderers in solitary confinement.
The prison is home to about 360 inmates held under ultra-high security.
It is here, the suspects argued, they could end up if found guilty of terrorism in the US.
High-profile terrorists
But the European Court of Human Rights found that a life sentence in the prison would be justified.
Supermax prisoner's story
"Extreme solitary confinement and reduced environmental
stimulation" is how Thomas Silverstein, a convicted multiple murder, has
described conditions at the Supermax prison.
In a 2007 lawsuit challenging the conditions of his
imprisonment, Silverstein said he was subject to 24-hour surveillance,
locked in an 8.5ft by 10ft cell for as many as 23 hours a day, and took
meals and exercised alone.
The cells in "Z-Unit" - a special segregation unit - contained a bed with metal restraint rings, a sink, toilet and shower.
One had a mirror, cement walls and a small window he could
only see out of when he stood on his desk. The other cell had no mirror -
only a small window covered in mesh and painted over, he said.
Silverstein, 60, had been convicted of murdering another
prisoner at a maximum security prison in Illinois. He said he exercised
an hour a day by himself in 10ft by 10ft "dog-kennel-like" cement yard
attached to his cell.
He said he was "entombed" by a sound-proof door that
prevented him from talking to other inmates, and in any case he was
barred from contacting other inmates.
The conditions, he said, caused depression, hallucination, disorientation and memory loss.
He said the damage went "beyond the boundaries of what most human beings can psychologically tolerate".
According to the court: "If the
applicants were convicted as charged, the US authorities would be
justified in considering them a significant security risk and in
imposing strict limitations on their ability to communicate with the
outside world."
Based on evidence from the US Department of Justice and
statements from the American prison, the court said conditions in the
jail would not breach human rights.
The prison, known for its high-profile inmates, small cells
and restrictions on contact with the outside world, has an infamous
international reputation: mainly because of its policy of holding its
inmates in almost permanent solitary confinement.
The facility, 108 miles (173km) from Denver, holds convicted
terrorists, militant anti-government extremists, gangsters, and other
criminals considered so violent and dangerous mere maximum-security
prison is not safe enough.
"We have only the most violent, disruptive and escape-prone
inmates in the federal system," says Mark Collins, a spokesman for the
prison.
Most of the prisoners are locked in spartan, 87-sq ft (8-sq
m) cells; those under the strictest conditions are allowed out for as
little as an hour a day, Mr Collins says.
Contact with other human beings is strictly limited - mostly to prison guards, counsellors and other staff.
Inmates who follow the rules can be rewarded with further
time out of their cells and more opportunities to interact with other
prisoners, Mr Collins says.
The prison is remote and isolated from the outside world But current and former inmates, lawyers and others familiar
with the prison describe it as an infernal environment in which even the
design of the cells and the architecture of the prison conspire to
render the inmates docile and drive them mad.
"People talk about it as being a cleaner version of hell,"
says Colin Dayan, a professor of English at Vanderbilt University and
author of The Law Is a White Dog: How Legal Rituals Make and Unmake
Persons, who has studied high security prisons in the US.
Some of the inmates
- Zacarias Moussaoui: Alleged "20th hijacker" convicted for a role in planning the 11 September terror attacks
- Ahmed Ghailani: Convicted of conspiring to carry out the 1998 bombings of US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania
- Ted Kaczynski: The "Unabomber" imprisoned for killing three people and wounding dozens of others in a string of bombings
- Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman and Ramzi Yousef: Convicted in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing
- Anthony Casso: Former underboss of New York's Lucchese mob family, serving multiple life sentences for murder
- Eric Rudolph: Anti-abortion militant who bombed a park during the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta
- Richard Reid: The so-called shoe bomber who tried to blow up a passenger jet
- Jose Padilla: A former Chicago gangster who trained at an al-Qaeda camp in Afghanistan
Source: US Bureau of Prisons, BBC research
"It's immaculate. It's no black
hole. It's not your typical sense of the hole of solitary confinement.
You are staring upon nothingness: Concrete all the time. The
architecture itself is the form of the torture."
It is this reputation that lawyers for Babar Ahmad, Syed
Tahla Ahsan, Adel Abdul Bary and Khaled Al-Fawwaz used in their defence.
According to the court, US Authorities would consider it
impossible to detain Abu Hamza, the fifth suspect, at the supermax
prison "because of his disabilities (particularly the amputation of his
forearms)".
Lawyers for the other four suspects argued that the tough
prison conditions would amount to "inhuman or degrading treatment or
punishment", under the Human Rights Act.
Last week Babar Ahmad told the BBC: "I am facing extradition
to the United States and spending the rest of my life in solitary
confinement."
But the court's judgement said that the facilities for
prisoners, including television, radio, newspapers, books and telephone
calls, "went beyond what was provided in most prisons in Europe".
'Horrifying cases'
In its ruling the court pointed out that "not all inmates
convicted of international terrorism were housed at ADX". The judgement
said "procedural safeguards" are in place for prisoners and that they
can bring claims to the attention of US authorities.
“Start Quote
I have a feeling the courts don't realise how extreme they are”
Dr Sharon Shalev
Criminologist, London School of Economics
But Dr Sharon Shalev, a
criminologist at the London School of Economics, who has visited
American high-security facilities, said: "Supermax prisons are very
extreme. I have a feeling the courts don't realise how extreme they are.
I've yet to see a European prison as extreme.
"Prisoners spend most of the day inside a small cell with no
view and no contact with other humans. Everything is done from inside
the cell.
"Even during medical treatment doctors stand at the gate of
the cell. American authorities would have you believe this is meaningful
human contact."
A supermax prison cell - 3.5m x 2m (7ft x 12ft)
1. Window - partially blocked to leave only a view of the sky
2. Shower - water on a timer switch to prevent flooding
3. Fixed concrete stool and writing desk
4. Combined toilet, sink and water fountain unit
5. Polished steel mirror
Dr Shalev said she had seen
"horrifying cases" of people who went into prison sane, but ended up
self-harming and attempting suicide as a result of solitary confinement.
Ray Luc Levasseur, a former inmate at ADX Florence
Penitentiary in Colorado, told the Today programme: "It doesn't always
stop with damage... it doesn't always have to stop with the mind.
"It can move on into degrading your soul, your spirit. And a
prisoner who's been damaged like this - from point of view of the prison
wardens - that prisoner is more controllable, more manageable."
