April 10, 2016•Update: April 17, 2016
By Jill Fraser
MELBOURNE, Australia
Australian authorities are set to launch an investigation into prisons’ management of radicalized inmates after a teenager reportedly carved a Daesh symbol into the head of a military veteran in a cell.
The Sydney Morning Herald reported Sunday that the 18-year-old allegedly used a sharp object to inscribe "e4e" -- a reference to Daesh’s "eye for an eye” slogan -- into the 40-year-old at a correctional facility in Kempsey in New South Wales.
The state’s corrective services commissioner told reporters that following the attack, “I have decided to suspend the general manager of the correctional centre pending the outcome of this investigation".
"If you are radicalised and at risk of engaging in violent extremism, you need to be locked up," Peter Severin said. "You need to be very highly controlled."
Charges of causing grievous bodily harm have been filed against the teen, who was transferred from the prison's maximum security section to a high-risk management correctional center after the violent incident Thursday afternoon.
An earlier police statement had said that an alleged argument between the two led to the teen “carving letters into the front and rear of the 40-year-old male victim's head, before pouring hot water through a towel placed onto the victim's face."
The Department of Corrective Services said Sunday that the victim, who also suffered a broken sternum, is "close to being released back to a correctional centre" after reportedly battling for his life in hospital.
The Herald quoted the chairman of the prison officers' union as saying that the teen should never have been placed with the veteran since they were classified as requiring maximum security and minimum security, respectively.
"We believe there was sufficient information that, if acted on correctly, would have prevented this from happening," Steve McMahon of the Prison Officer's branch of the Public Services Union said.
“It was a complete failure by the people in positions of responsibility, who had access to that information, to share it with the people who needed it to do their job," he added.
