May 11, 2006. Copyright 2006, Graphic News. All rights reserved

Inside the worldÕs toughest prison
By Joanna Griffin

LONDON, May 11, Graphic News:  In the words of the judge sentencing Zacarias Moussaoui, ColoradoÕs ÒSupermaxÓ prison is a place you go to Òdie with a whimperÓ. The September 11 Ò20th hijackerÓ is to serve six life sentences at the harshest super-maximum security jail in the United States -- a fate hardly better than the death sentence many expected the French-born terrorist to receive.

The Colorado prison facility, which has been dubbed the ÒAlcatraz of the RockiesÓ, is home to those considered AmericaÕs most dangerous, including ÒhomegrownÓ terrorists such as 1995 Oklahoma City bombing accomplice Terry Nichols, and Eric Rudolph, who was behind the bombing of the Olympic Park in Atlanta, Georgia, a year later.

As the toughest penal institution on U.S. soil -- if not on Earth itself -- it is increasingly the end of the road for Islamic terrorists. They include British Òshoe bomberÓ Richard Reid and Ramzi Yousef, who staged the 1993 bomb attack on the World Trade Center.

Not that these notorious enemies of the state will meet. At the Supermax, which is officially known as the ADX Florence and is located 90 miles from Denver, solitary confinement is a way of life. The facility and its regime have been designed to minimise human interaction to maintain the tightest possible control over inmates.

The Supermax owes its existence to the murders of two guards by inmates in Marion, Illinois. That prisoners could somehow subvert tight security to kill forced a closure of that facility and a rethink. ADX Florence was built as the first Òcontrol unitÓ, housing 400-500 male inmates, 22 percent of whom have killed fellow prisoners elsewhere.

This is not somewhere you ever leave. The two-storey building nestles into the side of a mountain, and all access is via a tunnel. Should the 1,400 remote-controlled steel doors, pressure pads and motion detectors fail to prevent escape, gun towers survey an outside area patrolled by attack dogs and surrounded by a 3.5-metre (12-foot) razor wire fence.

Inmates spend 23 hours a day in a 3.5-metre by 2-metre (12-foot by 7-foot) room with a slit for a window. The rooms are blocked by a steel door and gate, and arranged to prevent eye contact between their inhabitants. The rooms contain nothing that can be used to inflict harm, with furniture made of poured concrete and a shower operated by a timer to prevent flooding.

Inmates eat their meals in their cells, and are permitted to spend an hour a day exercising in a separate concrete room. Contact with the outside world is also restricted: each room has a small black and white TV that broadcasts educational programmes, and visits and phone calls are strictly rationed. Even contact with the wardens is minimal.

Human rights groups say the regime at the Colorado Supermax is dehumanising and tantamount to torture. Perversely, that may please those who still believe that Zacarias Moussaoui somehow landed a soft option.
/ENDS