Muslims had come to Omar and told him “We’ve heard inmates talking and saying that they’re going to get you. They’re saying that they’re going to burn you alive, to stab you.”

This is an exclusive interview with the wife of Omar Khyam, the "ringleader" of the Fertiliser Bomb Plot. Operation Crevice was one of the biggest terrorism trials in British legal history. We spoke to Mrs Khyam regarding recent threats to her husband and attacks made on other Muslim inmates currently imprisoned in HMP Frankland.

 

 

Al-Istiqamah: Mrs Khyam, assalaamu alaikum and many thanks for letting us conduct this interview.

Mrs Khyam: Wa alaikum salaam. No problem.

Al-Istiqamah: How long had you been married before your husband was arrested?

Mrs Khyam: Five days. We were on our honeymoon at the time, when they raided the hotel we were staying at.

Al-Istiqamah: Could you please give our readers a background to the various prisons your husband has been incarcerated at and for how long?

Mrs Khyam: He was in Belmarsh in the beginning when he was first arrested in 2004 for roughly nine or ten months. And then he was moved to Woodhill…

Al-Istiqamah: He was at the Secure Unit (Category AA) at Belmarsh?

Mrs Khyam: He was in the Secure Unit for six months and then he spent about four months in the main prison, Category A. After that he was moved to HMP Woodhill because his younger brother Shujah was there, so it would be easier for the family to visit both of them together. He was in Category A there for about a year and then he was moved back to Belmarsh for the trial in 2006. Omar was convicted and Shujah was acquitted.

Al-Istiqamah: How soon after conviction was he moved to HMP Frankland?

Mrs Khyam: He was moved to Frankland two months after his conviction and has been there for a month.

Al-Istiqamah: Was he the only brother from the trial to be moved to Frankland?

Mrs Khyam: Yes, that’s right.

Al-Istiqamah: And your in-laws are in Crawley. How far is it for you to travel to Frankland, which is situated in County Durham, on the border of Scotland?

Mrs Khyam: It’s about six or seven hours each way by car. The distance is roughly 350 miles.

Al-Istiqamah: What kind of a prison is Frankland? I know it is one of the eight prisons in the country with high security status.

Mrs Khyam: It’s a remand prison, it’s a local prison and also holds convicted prisoners. The population is quite sizeable but there are only twenty Muslims there. There are a hundred people on Omar’s wing and eight are Muslim.

Al-Istiqamah: Frankland currently holds around 750 prisoners, so the percentage of Muslims there is approximately 2.5%?

Mrs Khyam: Yes.

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