Convicted terrorist given five-month sentence for attacking prison officer

Abdullah Ahmed Jama Farah, from Manchester, left a warder struggling for breath after the assault at HMP Long Lartin in April.

Abdullah Ahmed Jama Farah (Handout/PA) (PA Media)

A convicted terrorist who punched a prison officer, leaving him struggling to breathe, has been sentenced to an extra five months behind bars.

Abdullah Ahmed Jama Farah, from Longsight, Manchester was jailed for seven years at the Old Bailey in 2016 after creating a communications hub to help extremists linked to the so-called Islamic State in Syria.

Jama Farah appeared at Worcester Crown Court on Thursday – his 26th birthday – via a video-link to Long Lartin high security jail near Evesham.

The entrance to HMP Long Lartin in Worcestershire (Jacob King/PA) (PA Archive)

The court heard Jama Farah was being returned to his cell in a segregation unit at Long Lartin when he assaulted a male prison officer shortly before noon on April 8 this year.

Prosecutor Alison Scott-Jones told the court: “Four officers surrounded him, forming a box.

“The defendant was described as not engaging and having a bit of an attitude.”

Jama Farah pleaded guilty at a previous hearing to causing actual bodily harm to the warder, who was punched in the face and neck.

Ms Scott-Jones said: “The complainant says there was a second blow that hit him in the throat.

“The victim was dazed and hurt and describes himself as struggling to breathe.”

The injured officer was forced to leave the scene of the attack crawling on his hands and knees, suffered bruising, swelling to his throat, and could not work for two weeks.

He also suffered from daily headaches and had problems sleeping.

Offering mitigation, defence barrister Zayd Ahmed described Jama Farah as a “model prisoner” who had recently been engaging with probation and was extremely remorseful about what had happened.

Jama Farah’s latest court appearance came four months after reports that he was refused parole following “behavioural concerns”.

The victim was dazed and hurt and describes himself as struggling to breathe

Prosecutor Alison Scott-Jones

Jama Farah, who is Danish and of Somali origin, was convicted of preparing for terrorism acts between 2013 and 2014 when he assisted Nur Hassan, from Moss Side, Manchester, by facilitating his travel to Syria.

He was also in contact with several other men – one reportedly an associate of Manchester Arena suicide bomber Salman Abedi – who left north-west England for Syria in October 2013.

Sentencing Jama Farah for assault, Judge James Burbidge QC, the Recorder of Worcester ruled that the blow to the throat was “not a deliberate act of asphyxiation.”

The judge said Jama Farah, who is now working as a prison cleaner despite the Covid pandemic, would have received a longer sentence if he had not pleaded guilty to the assault.