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UK Muslim prison clerics suspended

LONDON, England -- Britain's prison service suspended three Muslim clerics for making inappropriate comments about the September 11 attacks in the United States.

"We have made it very plain to all our imams that there are certain comments about being critical of the U.S.A. or in praise of what's happened on September 11 which are utterly unacceptable," Prison Service Director Martin Narey told the BBC.

A prison service spokesperson said three imams had been suspended between September and November for making inappropriate comments.

The service said they worked at Belmarsh Prison in south-east London, Aylesbury Young Offenders' Institution, northwest of London, and Feltham Young Offenders Institution in west London.

The imam at Belmarsh Prison, suspended in September, had since been reinstated following an investigation, the spokesperson said. Investigations into the other two cases are continuing.

Richard C. Reid, the man accused of trying to blow up a trans-Atlantic flight with explosives hidden in his shoes, was twice held at Feltham -- for 10 days in 1992 and one month in 1994, the British Home Office says.

Feltham is the largest such institution in the country and been beset by staff shortages and overcrowding, and a number of high-profile violent incidents.

Brixton Mosque chairman Abdul Haqq Baker told CNN that Reid and Zacarias Moussaoui -- the Frenchman charged with conspiracy to murder thousands in the September 11 attacks -- had both attended the mosque in south London.

Baker said Moussaoui and Reid's time at the mosque overlapped in late 1998 or early 1999, but he was not certain if the two had ever met.

Some 130 imams are employed as chaplains in British prisons, which house an estimated 4,000 Muslim prisoners.

Narey said all prison imams underwent security checks and were interviewed by a Muslim adviser to the prison service.

He said he doubted Reid's prison conversion had set him on the road to extremism.

"Overwhelmingly, imams make a huge contribution," he said.

"If someone converts to Islam or returns to their faith it is more likely that when they are released they will go home to a stable community, be accepted by the mosque in that community, which means it is less likely they will commit crimes, and that is very important," he added.