Radical clerics targeting youths in jail, says report

Radical Islamists have infiltrated Coast's prisons to radicalise inmates, a research by a Muslim human rights group has stated.

According to Muslims for Human Rights (Muhuri), Coast prisons have become a major recruitment ground for Islamic groups that consider inmates to be naive and vulnerable to extremist ideology.

Muhuri further claimed that many of the Islamists infiltrate the prison system by committing petty offences to enable them access youths serving in the prisons.

The report was released in Lamu on Sunday.

Muhuri's Programme Officer Peter Shambi said some of the radical preachers are foreigners who overstay in Kenya to orchestrate arrests and jail in order to get access to vulnerable Muslim youths serving sentences for drugs and related crimes.

"Since most of the people in prison in Coast region are youths convicted of petty offences or using drugs, the radical preachers are now opting to commit crimes so that they end up in jail where they can easily access them," Shambi said, adding that the radical Islamists deliberately commit crimes that will enable them stay in jail for between three months to six months, which they consider adequate time for radicalising hundreds of Muslim youth.

Tanzanian preachers

Shambi further said that Muhuri's research had established that Muslim youths who are detained in Coast come out of prison radicalised. "Prison warders should monitor what is happening inside the jails and the Government should also put in place a mechanism which will follow up on the youths who are released from prison," he noted.

Prison officers from Hindi and Lamu who were present during the workshop confirmed the allegations but declined to be put on record.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, prison warders told The Standard that radical preachers who are mostly from the neighbouring Tanzania stay in the country without necessary documentation to provoke arrest by Kenyan authorities.

"The radicals have realised that the Government has tightened the loose ends (outside prison) and they have now moved to the unfamiliar territory like the prison," said one of the warders.

Shambi referred to an incident where a Tanzania preacher who had been arrested in Lamu for being in the country illegally and jailed at Hindi prison recently assaulted a prison officer at the facility to prolong his stay.

“The preacher who had initially entered the country under the pretext of preaching was set to conclude his jail sentence before he could be deported back but it is evident that he committed the assault so that his jail term could be prolonged so that would accomplish his mission,” Shambi said.

Contacted for comment over alleged radicalisation at Hindi prison, the officer in charge Peter Kemei said he needed time to investigate the claims.