AN ALGERIAN inmate has launched a legal complaint over alleged anti-Muslim abuse in Cork Prison. Ali Charaf Damache, 45, with an address at High Street in Waterford, has secured leave to bring judicial review proceedings aimed at securing a transfer to another prison. His solicitor Caroline Egan said her client had been subject to abuse by inmates and prison staff.
She said a drawing of a cartoon depicting the Prophet Muhammad in an insulting manner was left in his cell.
In an affidavit, Egan said her client was racially abused by prison officers and inmates and was called “f***ing Muslim” and “Osama Bin Laden”.
She said that as part of his faith, he must wash and go to the toilet before he prayed, but was sometimes unable to because he and two other Muslims were in a restricted cell with no running water or proper toilet.
Egan said he was also on a vegetarian diet because he couldn’t get information on whether meat served in the prison was halal.
Damache is seeking declarations from the court that his constitutional rights and rights under the European Convention of Human Rights to freely practise his religion are being breached by his continued detention in Cork Prison.
He is awaiting trial on charges of making a menacing phone call to a US lawyer.
