Prisons breed terror

last updated 8 January 2015

Madrid

Islamic fundamentalists are finding recruits in Spain’s prisons, Spanish authorities said this week. After police arrested a suspected terror cell of 13 Muslim immigrants last week, they discovered that the men had all been common criminals, not religious radicals, when they met in the same prison. By the time they got out, they were calling themselves Martyrs for Morocco and planning to blow up a Madrid courthouse. “People in prisons are young, alienated, with a taste for adventure and for risk taking, and who feel their lives have been a waste,” said crime analyst Juan Avilés. “You can find all the raw materials to create terrorists.”