Prisons time bomb in Europe

By Aya Ezz

Following the emergence of Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) in 2014, terror attacks have increased largely in Europe; the problem which made think tanks examine the roots of this knotty phenomenon.

The researchers discovered that Europe’s prisons are one of the main reasons behind the spread of terrorism in the old continent.

Referring to this point, the international Centre for the Study of Radicalisation monitored that hundreds of people were enlisted by extremist groups inside the Europe’s prisons since 2011.

Think tanker Peter M. Neumann alerted that Europe’s prisons had become a fertile ground for the radical ideology.

Neumann ascribed what he concluded to the rise of arrest warrants relating to terrorism in which they paved the way for spreading radical ideas among prisoners.

Directing them to become jihadists, the terrorist leaders exploits the weaknesses such as marginalization, poverty in order to enlist them as Islamist fighters from inside the prison.

Examining nearly 79 terrorists from Belgium، Britain، Denmark، France، Germany and the Netherlands, the researchers found out that they had involved in the terror attacks in Europe.

The think tankers also signaled that those Extremists had criminal records in their countries.

The London-based centre revealed that the last five years about 5000 Europeans had traveled to the Middle East to fight with ISIS and other militant groups such as Syria- based Nosra group.

The study which the centre supervised said that 57 percent of Europeans examined were in the European prisons for different crimes while 27 percent were sentenced to prison for terrorist acts.

In that respect, Eilu Pantucci, from the Center for International Security Studies, warned of the trap which Europe had fallen into expressing his concern about the flow of terrorists from Europe’s prisons.

“An individual goes to jail for a crime not related to terrorism and then he becomes a terrorist due to someone conveys him radical ideas,” Britain Pantucci elaborated.

Pantucci disclosed that some organizations are administered by terrorist cells from the inside of Europe’s prisons warning of this formidable threat.

In the centre’s study, Pantucci identifies some of these organizations; “Sharia group” from Belgium, “Knights Group” and “Knights of glory” in France.