A ‘highly dangerous’ inmate tried to kill five guards with homemade weapons including sharpened spoons in a series of prison attacks, a court heard.
Aklakar Rahman, currently serving a sentence for attempted murder, wanted to be the first inmate to kill a prison officer, prosecutors said.
The 38-year-old viewed the guards as ‘kuffar,’ a derogatory term for non-Muslims, and repeatedly attacked staff at HMPs Swaleside in Kent and Belmarsh in south London, Alistair Richardson told jurors.
He is now charged with 20 offences including five counts of attempted murder, six attempted assaults on an emergency worker and possessing sharpened pieces of plastic.
Rahman has a history of using improvised weapons to try to kill guards and is serving a life sentence for three previous attempted murders and wounding with intent, Mr Richardson said.
These offences took place at HMP Wayland, HMP Lincoln and HMP Wakefield in the summer of 2017, jurors heard.
‘Knives are not readily available in prison so the defendant takes whatever he can find and makes from it improvised blades. He then sets about attacking prison officers – trying to stab their heads and their necks,’ Mr Richardson said.
The prosecutor added: ‘This highly dangerous man does not leave it to anybody else to work out what he is doing.
‘He has repeatedly said that he wants to kill prison officers. Both before the attacks, at the time he attacks, and afterwards.’
On September 23, 2022, Rahman was segregated at HMP Swaleside over concerns he was trying to radicalise other inmates to ‘extreme versions of Islam,’ the Old Bailey heard.
He was being escorted to a shower when he allegedly punched officer Lee Lassman in the face, shouted ‘Allahu Akhbar’ [God is great] and stabbed officer Ludovic Barbier in the forehead with a pen.
Rahman continued to shout, kick and try to bite officers as he was restrained, jurors were told, punching officer Dale Marsden in the stomach and stamping on Ross Greig’s foot in the scuffle.
The officers later realised that the pockets of Rahman’s gown had been picked open, enabling him to conceal the weapon.
The following day, Mr Lassman found Rahman standing naked in his cell brandishing a three-inch piece of sharpened plastic which he allegedly threatened to stick in the officer’s eye and neck, the court heard.
The trial continues.
