Dangerous prisoner shouted ‘death to non-believers’ before stabbing guard in head
A highly dangerous prisoner shouted for death to the non-believers as he stabbed an officer at HMP Belmarsh with an improvised weapon.
Aklakar Rahman ‘immediately started stabbing her head and throat’ as he was unlocked for lunch at the high-security jail, an incident report obtained by Metro shows.
He also threw a bin at the officer and two other key workers before lashing out with the sharpened plastic spoon, according to the document.
Rahman, 38, was heard to shout ‘kill all kaffirs, death to all kaffirs’ during the assault and continued to ‘thrash out’ even while he was being restrained.
Appearing at the Old Bailey last week, he was convicted of repeatedly attacking staff at the jail in south-east London and at HMP Swaleside in Kent between September and October 2022.
He was already serving a life sentence for earlier prison attacks after being jailed for Class A drugs offences in 2015.
During the trial, he made a series of admissions to the jury and went on to admit five charges of attempted wounding.
A jury found him guilty of four more, serious alternative charges of attempted murder.
He also admitted six attempted assaults on emergency workers and three charges of possessing sharpened pieces of plastic in prison.
At the time of the offences, Rahman was serving a life sentence for three earlier attempted murders and wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm, jurors heard
At his latest trial, prosecutor Alistair Richardson said Rahman was a ‘highly dangerous man’.
The defendant had repeatedly expressed a desire to kill prison officers who he regarded as ‘kaffir’, a derogatory term for non-Muslims.
On September 23, 2022, he had been detained in the high-security segregation unit at Swaleside over concerns he was trying to radicalise other inmates to ‘extreme versions of Islam’, the court was told.
While being escorted to a shower, he was said to have punched one officer and stabbed another in the forehead with a pen.
He went on to punch a third officer in the stomach and stamp on the foot of a fourth after they went to help their colleagues.
Rahman is then said to have tried to have stabbed an officer in the neck as he attempted to retrieve a homemade weapon.
After he was moved to Belmarsh, he tried to kill three prison officers on October 23, 2022, the court was told. He stabbed one in the head and neck and cut two more officers’ necks amid attempts to restrain him.
On being ordered to open his hand, the defendant was seen with the bottom of a plastic spoon that had been sharpened.
The incident was disclosed to Metro in a heavily redacted Ministry of Justice (MoJ) response to a Freedom of Information Act request provided while police were still investigating the attack.
The report reads: ‘[Redacted] was unlocked for lunch, threw his bin at staff and grabbed officer [redacted].
‘He immediately started stabbing her head and throat with an improvised weapon (sharpened prison utensil), he hit her and caused lacerations to the back of her head and superficial cuts to her neck.’
The report continues: ‘Officer [redacted] and officer [redacted] restrained Mr [redacted] and when doing so he continued to thrash out, injuring officer [redacted] (superficial cut to his throat) and officer [redacted] (superficial cut to back of neck).
‘It was believed that he had 2 x improvised weapons but only one was retrieved.
‘When assaulting staff Mr [redacted] said “kill all kaffirs, death to all kaffirs”.’
The officer’s colleagues then tried to restrain the prisoner in what is described as a ‘serious assault on staff’ in a database of violent incidents at the Category A jail.
The stabbed officer, aged in her 20s, attended hospital after sustaining lacerations to the back of her head and superficial cuts to her neck, according to the log.
In response to the report, the MoJ said that two prison officers had suffered ‘minor injuries’ with one being treated in hospital.
The attack was among more than 200 violent incidents between November 2021 and October 2022 at the jail in Thamesmead.
The MoJ initially refused to release the information before Metro appealed to the Information Commissioner’s Office.
After the watchdog became involved, the ministry released the document in redacted form.
A Prison Service spokesperson said: ‘We do not tolerate attacks against our hardworking staff and our £125 million investment in prison security is making their jobs safer.’
Rahman is due to be sentenced on March 28.
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