ISIS flag graffiti that appeared in the courtyard of Estremera prison (Madrid) in 2017.
The “frequent” appearance of graffiti by inmates in prisons, which can constitute a crime “because of their content or symbolism” and sometimes because they imply a glorification of jihadism, is a headache for the Interior Ministry, according to an official letter from prisons , recently sent to the prisons to which EL PAÍS had access. To face the consequences of the presence of this graffiti – “temporary closure of the cells and common room where they appear while their origin is investigated” – and to avoid impunity for their authors, the penitentiary in this Document to update the log that so far they were set in motion by prison officials when they found them. Interior’s goal is to achieve “greater usability and speed” in the face of these incidents, as outlined therein.
The decision came after the National Court acquitted five suspected jihadists last year on charges of posting this type of graffiti in prisons, a fact prosecutors had used unsuccessfully in all cases against them. Prison sources, however, completely separate the new order from those court decisions. According to prison statistics, dozens of graffiti are located by inmates every year, although in 2021 only two were considered suspected criminals, last year the number rose to four.
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Interior’s concerns about these incidents date back to 2017. On March 21 this year, officials from the Madrid VII penitentiary in the city of Estremera discovered a graffiti depicting the flag of the Islamic State (ISIS in its acronym in English) on a wall of the closed apartment that houses dangerous and contradictory inmates the expression in Arabic, “There is no god but Allah and Muhammad is his prophet,” the Shahada or testimony of the Muslims. A month later, when this graffiti had already been erased, another appeared, appealing to prisoners associated with jihadist ideology not to give up their activities as “soldiers of the caliphate”.
These graffiti were the start of a judicial investigation called Operation Escribano, which led to the arrest in October 2018 of around thirty prisoners accused of forming a jihadist group that radicalized other inmates. In the end, only four of them sat on the bench, including the alleged authors of the graffiti and other similar graffiti found in two cells of Campos del Río prison (Murcia) during the investigation. The four have been acquitted twice in these incidents so far, most recently in February. In that last sentence, the court held that the graffiti did not constitute a crime because they represented “forms of justification typical of the prison environment”. On June 23, the regional court ordered a retrial of the case.
Based on these findings, in October 2017 the correctional facilities drew up a first action protocol for graffiti found in common areas of prisons. Just a few months later, in February of the following year, he authored a second, in this case focusing on the graffiti found in the cells, believing that they had “less circulation or publicity” than the previous ones . The main difference between the two orders was that in the first case prison officials had to notify the security forces and in the second case the judge on duty. Now, after “the experience we have gathered over the years”, Interior combines both in one.
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So if graffiti is found, whether it appears in a common area or in a cell, prison officials must follow the same five steps. First, the graffiti are “conserved immediately after localization” to prevent them from being tampered with or deleted. To do this, the cell or the area where it is located is sealed to proceed with the following steps included in the guide.
Therefore, the officers prepare a report that “describes the facts, identifies the author or authors (if possible), attaches photos of the graffiti that are as clear as possible and informs about the measures taken to preserve it.” This document is sent to the prison security coordinator sent so that those responsible can make an initial “assessment of the graffiti” and, if necessary, start the translation. From this assessment it can be deduced whether the content of the graffiti can “cover signs”. [algún] “Crimes” such as the glorification of terrorism are punishable by one to three years in prison.
In this case, the facts are brought to the attention of the police responsible for the perimeter security of the prison – the vast majority of prisons are the Guardia Civil – so that they can in turn forward the information to an investigative team to carry out a visual inspection and secure the evidence for later presentation in court. Only then and as a last step will the officers remove the graffiti and in this way unseal the cell or common room so that it can be used again by the inmates. The document stresses that all of this is intended to recover the graffiti sites for use “as soon as possible”.
The acquittals of Operation Escribano showed how difficult it is to evaluate the graffiti found in prisons as evidence of crimes. Last July, the National Court also released another suspected jihadist by dismissing evidence collected against him, including graffiti found in the bathrooms, terrace and a cell of Algeciras prison (Cádiz) in April 2018, while he was incarcerated there for another crime were sufficient to charge him with terrorist self-indoctrination.
In that ruling, the judges emphasized that while the markings found in the prison were interpreted as symbols of the Islamic State – one allegedly depicted the terrorist organization’s flag along with an assault rifle – and therefore a possible reference to the trial, in reality the authorship of the jihadist Defendant’s radicalization never identified, except in a report containing the “private criteria” of the Civil Guard who prepared the police report on this finding.
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