Fuad Awale has been awarded £7,500 in compensation and £234,000 in legal costs after he got ‘severe depression’ when put in a segregation unit for taking a prison officer hostage and threatening to kill him
A double murderer who took a prison officer hostage has won a £240,000 legal battle for taxpayer funded compensation and legal costs.
Fuad Awale was jailed for life for the execution-style shooting of two teenagers in 2013 and given a life sentence with a minimum term of 38 years. He was later given a further six years for threatening to kill a prison officer. Awale, 36, claimed he got “severe depression” when put in a segregation unit for dangerous inmates at HMP Woodhill, Bucks.
The High Court agreed it breached Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) and he was awarded £7,500 in compensation and £234,000 legal costs. Shadow justice secretary Robert Jenrick told the Daily 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. 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.”
Details of the compensation were revealed in a letter from Deputy Prime Minister and Justice Secretary David Lammy to Mr Jenrick. Awale was sentenced to life in January 2013 aged 25 after shooting Mohammed Abdi Farah, 19, and Amin Ahmed Ismail, 18, in the head in a Milton Keynes alleyway over a drugs dispute.
He was handed a further six-year jail sentence after taking a prison officer hostage in 2013 and threatening to kill him. Awale had pointed a sharp implement at the throat of the officer, pinning him to a chair, and said: “Stop struggling, I’ve killed two people – I’ll kill you.”
He was later assessed as having “extremist beliefs” and held in a close supervision centres – where up to four officers with body-worn cameras monitor inmates. Awale was kept in HMP Woodhill, Milton Keynes, from 2021 onwards and did not associate with any other inmates until March 17, 2023, spending as little as one hour a day outside his cell.
His lawyers successfully argued the decisions to deny access were ‘opaque’, adding Awale had been denied the chance to argue his case as prison managers were failing to regularly review his segregated conditions, as required by law. Awale previously asked to associate with one of the Islamic extremist killers of Fusilier Lee Rigby – but was denied the request due to terrorism concerns.
Revealing the payout, Mr Lammy told Mr Jenrick that the £7,500 compensation sum was “modest proportion” of the overall settlement – after it was contested by the Ministry of Justice, as is standard practice for “all litigation by prisoners convicted of terrorist offences”.
Mr Lammy added: “I can assure you that significant policy and operational changes are under active consideration to ensure that the legal framework regarding the placement in separation remains robust, relevant and trusted.”
