A top-security prison where almost half the inmates are Muslims is a breeding ground for Islamic extremists, experts warned last night.

The Sunday People reveals that category A Whitemoor jail, where terror fanatics are serving life ­sentences for plotting mass murder in the UK, is a recruiting centre for al Qaeda, ­according to alarmed staff, prison ­inspectors and politicians.

An astonishing 42 per cent of ­convicts at the prison near March, Cambs, ­follow the Islamic faith.

The figure is in stark contrast to the overall UK population in which just five per cent are Muslim.

Violent jihadists in Whitemoor are recruiting vulnerable inmates , pressurising them into converting to Islam before joining terrorist groups, the Government has been warned.

One prison officers’ union source said: “Whitemoor is now effectively run by Muslims, many of whom are Jihadis.”

Other top-security prisons are not far behind, with 33 per cent Muslim inmates at Belmarsh in south-east London and 20 per cent at Full Sutton near York and Long Lartin, Worcs.

Last night Labour’s shadow justice secretary Sadiq Khan told the Sunday People: “The Government hasn’t even noticed these alarming figures.

“While the Justice Secretary is busy with gimmicks he has no idea if and to what extent radicalisation is taking place in our prisons.

“The Government has failed to take action on this. In jails like Whitemoor the Chief Inspector is on record warning of the risks of radicalisation.

“The Government needs to wake up to this problem before it’s too late.”

Figures released by the Ministry of Justice last week show there are now 11,729 Muslims in British jails, the highest figure ever and equivalent to one in seven of all inmates.

The highest number are at Whitemoor which has a total ­population of around 500 of Britain’s most dangerous offenders, 210 of them Muslims.

Terrorists there include Zia Al Haq, 35, of Wembley, north London, who was sentenced to 18 years in 2007.

Al Haq was in a sleeper cell plotting to bomb a London Tube tunnel, pack a limousine with explosives and set off a dirty radiation device.

Another terrorist at Whitemoor is Nezar Hindawi, 60, serving 45 years.

He planted a bomb in his pregnant fiancee’s hand luggage on a flight from London Heathrow to Tel Aviv in 1986, which could have killed 375.

Sources inside the prison officers’ union say Whitemoor has become a centre of radicalisation and many Muslim inmates have left as “fully signed-up members of al-Qaeda.”

At Belmarsh Prison the problem is almost as acute with one in three inmates calling themselves Muslim.

Current inmates include Michael Adebolajo, 28, and Michael Adebowale, 22, who butchered soldier Lee Rigby in Woolwich, south London last year.

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Muslims committing crimes and being sent to jail is all due to Islamophobia – not their propensity to crime.

Get real! As if they are sent to jail without any trial or investigation whether a crime was actually committed.

Why not teach them from childhood onwards to not be antagonistic against non-Muslims and society in general? Were the young victims of sex slavery Islamophobic? Were the honor murder victims Islamophobic? Were the victims of all their drug peddling Islamophobic? Are people all over the world Islamophobic or why are Muslims always the most dominant group on crimes in society no matter where they go? Are all French people Islamophobic because their prisons are dominated by 70%+ Muslims? And the Spanish with over 60% Muslim prison population is Islamophobic? Or could it be their own conduct and upbringing and the doctrines of the Quran, that legalizes their crimes in non-Muslim societies that is the actual cause?

Always the victims. Amongst Muslims there doesn’t seem to exist any conscience whatsoever or personal responsibility.

In this BBC video interview [Sunday politics] with Andre Neil [6:30] however, when Sadiq Khan discusses other non-Muslim criminals, he insists that burglars must go to prison and criminals should be deported. So why are the Muslim prisoners not deported? Are there supposed to be Islamophobia excuses for Muslims and lenience, while others must be deported and jailed? And since many burglars do not go to prison in the UK, there would be even more Muslims in prison should they be properly punished.

From The Standard:

More than a quarter of London’s prison population are Muslims, prompting urgent calls for an inquiry into what is happening in the justice system.

Official figures have revealed that record levels of Muslim people are serving jail sentences and that the numbers are still growing. Across England and Wales the proportion has risen from eight per cent a decade ago to 14 per cent now.

In London, the figure is an “astonishing” 27 per cent, which is more than double the 12 per cent of the capital’s population who are Muslim. In two prisons, Feltham and Isis, a third of the inmates were Muslim.

The data was obtained by Sadiq Khan, the lawyer and shadow justice secretary who is himself a Muslim. He told the Evening Standard that an inquiry was vital to explain why the increase is happening.

“What’s really worrying is the rise, year after year, in the number of Muslims behind bars,” he said, adding: “We need to know why that’s the case if we’re to stop this rising further, reduce crime and prevent people needlessly becoming victims.”

Half of the top 10 prisons with the highest Muslim populations are in London, including Belmarsh, where the percentage has risen since 2010 from 19 to 29 per cent, Brixton (24 per cent), Pentonville (28 per cent), Thameside (25 per cent) and Wormwood Scrubs (27 per cent).

Mr Khan accused the Government of sitting on its hands after a 2010 call by the Chief Inspector of Prisons for a National Strategy to deal with the growing numbers of Muslims behind bars.

He said: “Four years on and ministers have ignored this call. The Government is utterly clueless about what to do about this growing problem. This is a waste of human talent and a huge drain on the hard-pressed taxpayer.”

Higher offending rates is only one of many possible reasons why the prison population is higher for some groups of the population. Other explanations could be that Muslims are more frequently caught and prosecuted, or sentenced to longer prison terms compared with other offenders.

A Prison Service spokesperson said: “We have already implemented many of the recommendations from the 2010 report.”

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Incarcerated in Fresnes (Val-de-Marne), a prisoner was subjected to pressure and threats from a radical Islamist fellow prisoner before securing a change of cell.

Religion was his ordeal. Four months after the facts, Antoine (name changed) can hardly speak of the 72 days of detention in which he was subjected to death threats and intimidation from fellow prisoners who wanted to convert him to Islam by force, which for them equivalent to salvation.

His story starts at the end of May when the young man was sentenced to 5 years in prison for a rape he has always denied.

After the verdict, Antoine was incarcerated in the prison in Fresnes (Val-de-Marne), in the area for new arrivals. After a week, he was transferred to a cell of 9 square metres, where two fellow prisoners awaited him. “I started talking to the first but the second, who had a long beard, acted as if I wasn’t there,” says Antoine. An indifference of short duration. When he came back from his walk, the silent one spoke to Antoine.

“He asked me why I was there and, above all, if I was a believer,” he recalls. I replied that I was a Catholic but not very active in practice. He immediately replied saying this was an error, “because the only religion worthy of the name was Islam.” He showed several religious works and urged his fellow prisoner to “forget everything he learned outside the walls, because his only salvation would come from conversion to the Muslim religion.” In order to pacify the situation, Antoine agreed to read one of the books.

Three days later, he asked to speak with one of the prison psychologists. “She tried to prevaricate, telling me that things would go back to normal and that if I asked to be moved, there was a risk that I would meet people who were even more violent,” he recalls.

After a week, the young man went out on a walk for the first time. “Five people, including my fellow prisoner, surrounded me in a corner of the yard and threatened me, explaining me that I had better read the books and convert rapidly.”

Panic-stricken, Antoine alerted his lawyer and the prison officials. “In the course of the next few days, they were yelling my surname in the passageways, calling me a grass and saying I would go to hell. I begged to be transferred to the cooler because I knew it was the only place I would be safe,” he continues. “But I stayed in the same cell. I was terrorised more and more. One evening my cell mate spoke to me about Jews and offered some antisemitic insults. I told him that, personally, I had nothing against this religion. That made him go into a black rage.”

The next day, he would pay for his remarks. “In the early evening, one of the guards let a prisoner from one of the neighbouring cells into my cell with a 20 cm blade in his hand,” he says. The guard, who is currently subject to an administrative inquiry, left, slamming the door. For about twenty minutes, the young man confronted his cell mate and his accomplice, alone: “They warned me: ‘If you don’t convert, you’re a dead man’.”

Told by Antoine about these new threats — corroborated by other prisoner testimony – the prison management decided to move him to another cell, under a false name to avoid reprisals. At the same time, a search of his former cell was organised. Along with mobile phones and SIM cards, the guards discovered several books, including one: “How to convert a non-Muslim.”

Antoine, however, continued to suffer. A few days later, he was kicked and punched by several fellow prisoners in a passageway. The day after, seven people suspected of aggressive proselytism, including his cell mate, were identified with the help of agents from the prison information service. They were moved to other prisons. Antoine was freed in mid-September.