Thursday, June 16, 2011

U.S. Prisons Hotbed for Islamist Terror, Rep. King Says


Islamist terror groups are converting, indoctrinating, and recruiting prisoners and it is a rising threat to the U.S. national security, Rep. Peter King warned at a hearing on Muslim radicalization Wednesday which Democrats decried as “racist and discriminatory.”

“A number of cases since 9/11 have involved terrorists who converted to Islam or were radicalized to Islamism in American prisons, then subsequently attempted to launch terror strikes here in the U.S. upon their release from custody,” King, chairman of the Committee on Homeland Security, said in the opening statement of the hearing entitled, “The Threat of Muslim-American Radicalization in U.S. Prisons.”

The hearing, second in what is expected to be a series of hearings on Muslim radicalization, also saw Patrick Dunleavy, a retired New York prison inspector, testifying to the lawmakers.

“As the former Deputy Inspector General of the Criminal Intelligence Division in the New York State Department of Corrections, I am aware that individuals and groups that subscribe to radical, and sometimes violent, ideology have made sustained efforts over several decades to target inmates for indoctrination,” Dunleavy said in his testimony, which was later posted on Homeland Security’s website.

The retired official also said that some of these groups act as “the certifying bodies responsible for hiring imams into the prison system, thus affording them continuous access to the prison population.”

“In addition, the cycle of radicalization continues through post‐release programs.”

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