Britain is not the first country to consider holding the highest-risk Islamic extremist prisoners in specialist isolation units.
In January 2015, when 17 people were killed in attacks in Paris, the Socialist government in France vowed to act on what it called the “major issue” of radicalisation in prisons.
Chérif Kouachi and Amedy Coulibaly, two of the men who carried out the attacks, including the storming of the offices of Charlie Hebdo magazine, shared the same hardline mentor when they were at Fleury-Mérogis prison near the French capital in 2005.
In the aftermath of the attacks, France’s prime minister, Manuel Valls, announced that Islamic extremists would be isolated from the rest of the prisoner population to prevent jails from being used as a breeding ground for radicalism. [The Guardian] Read more
