Double murderer awarded £240k payout over human rights breaches
A double murderer has been awarded a £240,000 payout over human rights breaches.
In January 2013, Fuad Awale was given a life sentence with a minimum term of 38 years over the execution-style shooting of two teenagers in the UK in 2011. He was later given a further six years for threatening to kill a prison officer.
Awale was moved to a close supervision centre (CSC) - a special unit segregated from the wider prison due to the risks he poses – after he helped to take the officer hostage.
The killer, who was assessed to hold extremist beliefs, was also stopped from having contact with other prisoners, including one of the men who killed Fusilier Lee Riby in southeast London in 2013. Awale claimed it had impacted his mental health and breached his human rights.
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By the time of the High Court ruling in September 2024, a series of events during the man’s time in the CSC system meant he hadn’t been able to associate with any other inmates since March 2023.
It was then ruled that Awale’s treatment breached Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), which protects the right to private and family life.
This ruling was discussed in parliament in November, and it was revealed that the prisoner was awarded £234,000 in legal costs by the High Court. There is then £7,500 in compensation on top of this.
Details of this were revealed in a letter sent by Deputy Prime Minister and Justice Secretary David Lammy to shadow justice secretary Robert Jenrick.
Jenrick had asked Lammy if he would pay any compensation out of his own pocket rather than using taxpayers’ money if he wanted to follow the court’s ruling.
The shadow secretary told The Telegraph: “It’s a sick joke that taxpayers are handing this man £7,500 in compensation and footing a legal bill of over £230,000.”
He continued: “This is a double murderer and extremist who took a prison officer hostage.
“This is the reality of the ECHR: it prioritises the ‘rights’ of terrorists to associate with other extremists over the safety of our prison officers.
“Labour are cowing to terrorists and the human rights brigade. They must introduce emergency legislation to carve these monsters out of the ECHR immediately.”
In his letter to Jenrick, Lammy said: “This Government will not be cowed by legal threats from prisoners.
“The separation centre remains an essential operational tool to protect the public and other prisoners, and when dangerous radicalisers pose a risk, they will be placed in one.
“This Government is committed to the European Convention on Human Rights.
“Commitment does not mean complacency, however, and we must keep under review whether the application of the convention is acting as a barrier to us protecting national security.”
Jess Battison