Are terror-linked inmates “radicalizing” other convicts in
the country’s prisons?
There have been no confirmed cases yet, but authorities are
working to avert the threat, keeping an eye on the movements of inmates
identified as members of organizations deemed to be terrorist, officials said
this week.
Under constant watch are inmates known to be members of the
Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF), a splinter group of the
secessionist Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), and the Abu Sayyaf, both of
which swore allegiance last year to the Islamic State (IS), an international
extremist group responsible for executions and attacks that have drawn global
condemnation.
The Bureau of Corrections (BuCor) is also initiating moves
to “sectorize” and “put a semblance of segregation” in the long-neglected New
Bilibid Prison (NBP) in Muntinlupa City, said its director, Franklin Jesus
Bucayu.
The congested facility has been beset by violence and
controversy, including the proliferation of drugs and crime, and the princely
lifestyle of high-profile inmates which came to light after authorities
conducted two raids in December.
“There is that danger [of radicalization], but that has not
happened. We have yet to confirm it. Of course, the problem in our prisons is
the lack of facilities,” Bucayu said.
“There’s the danger because prisoners are mixed together.
That (danger) is the implication, because there is too much congestion,” he
told the Inquirer.
Bucayu said prison security was “a national security
matter.”
Justice Secretary Leila de Lima said her office was
monitoring this possibility, given the risks.
“[But the BuCor management is] not seeing that there is an
ongoing radicalization, especially in the IS,” she said.
Some 14,500 inmates are currently jailed together in the
maximum security compound of the 9-hectare Bilibid prison facility, the
“high-risk” or violence prone and the suicidal together with the tamer ones.
The NBP is a prison that has virtually no bars, with inmates
allowed to roam freely within its walls throughout the “eight decades it was
neglected,” said Bucayu.
Congestion at the NBP is currently at 165 percent, an
all-time high, he said.
“So when you mix them together, there is a greater
likelihood of trouble. It’s a security nightmare,” he added.
Bucayu could not say just how many Abu Sayyaf and BIFF
inmates were currently under watch, only that identifying them as such was
complicated as they were sentenced to prison for cases like illegal possession
of firearms and murder, and not for terrorist activities.
The official said he brought this concern to De Lima’s
attention by letter in November.
Bucayu told De Lima that the BuCor was handling “a good
number of Islamist radicals,” specifying them as members of the “Abu Sayyaf, the
BIFF and suspected IS affiliates.”
He said these inmates “continue to proselytize and recruit
fellow inmates into their beliefs, further contaminating other inmates and
defeating the reform agenda of the bureau.”
While the tone of his November letter was unequivocal,
Bucayu clarified in an interview that he merely meant to say there was such a
“danger.”
“We have yet to confirm or verify that. We are monitoring.
But we have yet to have real evidence [to confirm that],” he said.
http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/684939/prison-officials-fear-terrorists-radicalizing-inmates
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