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Terrorist Reid May Move To Less Secure Prison

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Nov 20, 2009 6:36 pm US/Mountain

Terrorist Reid May Move To Less Secure Prison

FLORENCE, Colo. (CBS4) ―

Click to enlarge 1 of 2: Richard Reid
AP
Click to enlarge 2 of 2: Visit the CBS4 Investigates section.

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: Inside Supermax (Prisoners & Images)

New government documents disclose that the terrorist who tried to blow up a passenger-filled jetliner over the Atlantic Ocean with a shoe bomb is no longer in the most-restrictive wing of the nation's highest-security prison.

The official documents, dated Nov. 13 and obtained by CBS4, also reveal would-be bomber Richard Reid eventually may be moved from Supermax at Florence to a less-secure prison.

He is serving life sentences for the 2001 crime on flight from Paris to Miami.
The documents suggest Reid has given up a lengthy hunger strike he and other Muslim inmates undertook earlier this year, purportedly to protest their conditions of confinement.

A prison official stated in the documents Reid was moved Aug. 14 into Supermax's general population. For 5 1/2 years he had been in an isolation unit reserved for inmates who are under the highest restrictions in the federal prison system, many of them terrorists.

In the general population, Reid's visits and his mail no longer are being monitored by the FBI, Supermax official Mark Collins states in the documents.

The U.S. attorney general in 2003 imposed "special administrative measures" on Reid, citing his "proclivity for terrorism." Those measures imposed extra restrictions on his contacts in and out of prison, including mail and visitors.

When they were last renewed annually in June 2008, his "proclivity for violence" was cited by the warden as the reason.

The restrictive measures were not renewed last June. A Bureau of Prisons spokesperson later said the decision was based on recommendation of the Justice Department's counter terrorism section, the FBI and the prosecuting U.S. Attorney's office.

Reid was fighting the special restrictions in a lawsuit he filed in 2007 in U.S. District Court in Denver, contending they violated his constitutional rights, including his right to practice his Sunni faith.

Prison authorities contend the lawsuit is moot because he is no longer under the special measures, but he continues to pursue the lawsuit.

Although the tight restrictions were not renewed in June, on Aug. 25 prison authorities restricted Reid's correspondence to a few immediate family members because "he is considered a 'security risk,'" Collins states.

Some homeland security experts and former U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey, whose job included being in charge of federal prisons, are reported to have challenged the wisdom of allowing Reid more privileges. News reports quote them as having warned Reid's greater freedoms pose potential threats to the United States.

The Supermax official says in the documents it will be at least two years before Reid potentially qualifies to be moved from Supermax to the nearby high-security U.S. Penitentiary, and then another year before he might qualify for a less-secure prison.

A government attorney states in the new documents that a final decision on where to place Reid was affected by his health status, which deteriorated considerably during his hunger strike.

Concerns about his health "have been resolved," the attorney states.

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