European Knight
02-20-2015, 09:16 AM
COPENHAGEN, Feb 19 — Something happened in prison to Omar El-Hussein, the 22-year-old identified by police as the gunman who killed two people in a weekend shooting spree in Copenhagen. His transformation from small-time criminal to cold-blooded killer is fuelling a debate about whether a radicalised environment in Danish prisons is pushing smalltime gangsters into the arms of Islamic extremism.
“He was crazy. When he came out of prison he was totally nuts,” said a taxi driver from the housing estate where El-Hussein lived and played as a child. Copenhagen’s longstanding problem with criminal gangs means the authorities are now concerned that El-Hussein’s journey from joining a gang in the immigrant community where he grew up, via prison into extremism could mirror a wider trend.
Having been sentenced to two years in prison for a stabbing, he displayed a newfound interest in religion after being released just a fortnight before the attacks that targeted a synagogue and a cultural centre hosting a debate on free speech and Islam. “The things he talked about completely flew over the boys’ heads,” a source who knew him since his childhood days on the inner city Mjoelnerparken estate told the Berlingske newspaper. Emerging from jail, he was no longer talking about “cars and girls”, the paper quoted sources as saying, but about “ending up in paradise”.
Widespread radicalisation
See more at: http://www.themalaymailonline.com/world/article/danish-jails-seen-as-breeding-ground-for-radicalist
“He was crazy. When he came out of prison he was totally nuts,” said a taxi driver from the housing estate where El-Hussein lived and played as a child. Copenhagen’s longstanding problem with criminal gangs means the authorities are now concerned that El-Hussein’s journey from joining a gang in the immigrant community where he grew up, via prison into extremism could mirror a wider trend.
Having been sentenced to two years in prison for a stabbing, he displayed a newfound interest in religion after being released just a fortnight before the attacks that targeted a synagogue and a cultural centre hosting a debate on free speech and Islam. “The things he talked about completely flew over the boys’ heads,” a source who knew him since his childhood days on the inner city Mjoelnerparken estate told the Berlingske newspaper. Emerging from jail, he was no longer talking about “cars and girls”, the paper quoted sources as saying, but about “ending up in paradise”.
Widespread radicalisation
See more at: http://www.themalaymailonline.com/world/article/danish-jails-seen-as-breeding-ground-for-radicalist