International Journal on Criminology Volume 3, Number 2, Fall 2015 | Page 34

Organized Crime Behind Bars
Qur'an, using his basic Arabic. It is well known that radical preachers always schematize
their religious teaching under the pretext of returning to the sources; in fact, it is most
often an extreme reduction of Islam, far from the tenets of the religion itself.
In prison, Bourada formed a group, Ansar al-Fath. 25 Using smuggled mobile
phones, he called his former accomplices, those of the 1995 attacks, to try to convince
them to follow him, like his cellmates.
Released in 2004, Bourada went to Egypt under the pretext of studying Arabic.
He was arrested again in 2005, suspected of terrorist activities with his fellow prisoners
of Ansar al-Fath, sending jihadis to fight in Iraq and planning attacks in France, on the
model of the London bombings.
According to anti-terrorism agencies, French prisons are fertile ground for
Islamists to recruit potential terrorists. Numerous proselytes 26 operate within the
French prison system, and more than 10% are converted, from a prison population
of 60,000 detainees, including 2,000 classified as “dangerous.” Within this population,
prisoners accused of terrorist activities appear less active in proselytizing than are
common criminals of Muslim origin, although this may be due to the more rigorous
supervision to which they are subject.
Today Islam is the largest religion in French prisons. It is therefore perhaps
not surprising that Islamist groups form inside, where extremists actively engage in
recruiting with the immediate goal of swelling their ranks in Europe and elsewhere.
These Islamist recruiters in French prisons, sometimes dubbed “les barbus”
(the bearded ones), are often over thirty years of age with a certain level of education,
especially in the sciences. They are thus older and better educated than their recruits.
They contact other inmates during group activities, circulating copies of the Koran,
books and cassettes. They show great devotion and harass their peers into respecting
Ramadan and religious days. Very often, they manage to usurp the true Imams,
insufficient in number to minister to the whole French prison system. They thus
proclaim themselves the only representatives of Islam. Walking around prison with
their prayer mats under their arms, even in otherwise prohibited areas, some even take
on the role of Muezzin, announcing the hour of prayer and calling the faithful. The
prison guards may even call upon these so-called imams to prevent or to calm tense
situations, a compromise that serves to strengthen their authority.
In the context of the French prison, radical Islam, Islamism, Salafism, and
Tabligh grow and prosper—the ground is fertile for the emergence of new terrorists,
a phenomenon illustrated by the recent story of Mohammed Merah (a petty criminal
who attacked police and soldiers in Toulouse in 2012 because of French involvement
in Afghanistan) and exacerbated by the emergence of the Syrian problem.
Finally, we may examine the administrative side of the equation. On March 10,
2015, it was reported that a guard at Borgo prison had been arrested. She was accused
of having brought between twenty-five and fifty mobile phones in to two inmates over
25
The “Partisans of Victory.”
26
Some 200 individuals, according to sources.
29