(Richard Reid) Held in darkness and paranoia

At six feet four inches tall, Richard Reid makes a forbidding figure, even from behind the iron grates, steel doors and automated locks that separate him from his prison guards in this place they call Terrorist Central.

Hunched on a stool that is moulded to the floor of his broom-cupboard-sized cell, he turns the pages of the newspaper spread out on the concrete desk before him, soaking up stories and pictures from an outside world that he will never see again.

"Yeah, toothpaste," he might answer, or "Pencil and paper" or "I want a shower."

"It's not like he exchanges pleasantries with you, it's strictly business both ways, but he doesn't go out of his way to be rude either," said Cory Hodge, 37, a former correctional officer at the unit.

"Other than maybe some incidental whining, he's a fairly compliant inmate and I never had problems with him, which is good because he's a big man. But remember that Richard Reid was in prison in England even before he became the Shoe Bomber. He's a convict through and through, and that makes him an extra special danger. He understands the system and how to manipulate it if he wants to."

His docile demeanour as inmate number 24079-038 is a far cry from the behaviour that landed him here at the US Penitentiary Administrative Maximum Facility — also known as ADX, Super Max, Bombers' Row, and the Alcatraz of the Rockies — just outside the town of Florence, Colorado. Five years ago, on December 22, 2001, Reid, of Bromley, Kent, boarded American Airlines flight 63 from Paris to Miami, intending to blow it up by detonating plastic explosives hidden in one of his shoes. As he tried to light the fuse he was spotted by a flight attendant and, following a violent struggle, was overpowered.

Just over a year later the young fanatic who had attended Finsbury Park mosque in London where Abu Hamza preached was sentenced to life in prison.

The first British al-Qaeda convict was dragged from the federal courtroom in Boston still shouting his allegiance to Osama bin Laden. "I'm at war with your country," he yelled at the judge.

Beyond this concrete fortress in Colorado, with its watchtowers, razor wire, and walls reinforced with seven layers of steel and cement, lies a land of wilderness and ranches, lofty mountains and glamorous ski resorts, big skies and dramatic pink sunsets. Cattle and the occasional deer graze the perimeter, peregrine falcons soar overhead.

Located on a high desert plain in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, 90 miles south of Denver, Florence had its first fall of winter snow last week, turning the sun-yellowed landscape a blinding white.

But from his cell on a unit that also houses fellow al-Qaeda terrorists, Reid, 33, sees nothing of the panorama.

For the rest of his life, his window on the world will be a slit measuring 42 in long and four inches wide, through which he can glimpse an enclosed concrete yard with 25 ft walls and, through the chainlink mesh that covers it, a small patch of sky. The prison, which opened in 1994, was built following the 1983 killings of guards at a penitentiary in Marion, Illinois. It was intended to hold the country's most dangerous prisoners.

"It's sensory deprivation — not Guantanamo, not hoods over your head and mental torture, but the next worst thing," one guard claimed.

The al-Qaeda inmates are kept in a separate area from other prisoners "partly because they have common needs particular to their faith, partly to ensure they cannot try to recruit others to their cause," explained one guard.

Another said: "There are sociopaths and borderline psychopaths among the other prisoners here. They know that they could make a name for themselves if they took the life of a high-profile inmate — a 9/11 terrorist, the World Trade Centre guys, the Shoe Bomber."

For 23 hours a day, Reid is locked down, confined to his cell. From computerised control booths, staff monitor the ranges using remote-controlled video cameras and motion sensors. Every half hour, day and night, he is checked through the windows in his cell doors and must stand by his bed at designated times, five times a day as the staff take a head-count.

His one hour of "freedom" may be spent padding around an indoor recreation hall alone, apart from his escorts, or sometimes in a yard with others, sectioned off from one another in "dog kennel" style compounds.

There, they pace back and forth like "big cats at a zoo," according to fellow inmate Eric Robert Rudolph, 40, who is serving life for the 1996 Olympic Park bombing in Atlanta and a series of fatal attacks on abortion clinics.

In letters to an American writer, Maryanne Vollers, the author of a newly published biography of him, he recounts how the shouts of the jihadists reverberate through the prison. "They're an extremely fatalistic people. They have little interest in anything other than the Middle East, President Bush and Islam."

Sometimes, he says, they shout out to him and teach him their language. At other times, they are "sulking or buried in some Arabic hell of depression." Like the other al-Qaeda prisoners, Reid, according to sources at the jail, takes advantage of "the inmate telephone" — the shower drains, through which they yell to one another while washing.

"Sometimes it's Arabic, sometimes it's English," the source revealed. Officers will hear the shouts of Allahu Akhbar — God is great. Other times, one said, "It's stuff like: 'Hey, what book are you reading at the moment?' "

Staff are trained not to divulge personal details, such as whether they have children, where they grew up, whether a relative is sick. "You don't want these guys getting inside your head, Silence of the Lambs-style. They're predatory manipulators," said one worker.

The day begins at around 5.30am, when the lights are turned up, stirring Reid from the thin mattress laid on his concrete bed. Breakfast is served on a tray delivered to his cell by two guards, who must wait for the outer double doors to lock behind them before they enter the inner set of barred gates or pass items through the hatch.

Lunch is at 11am, dinner at 4pm. The lights go down again — but never out — at 10pm.

"Other than, 'Hey, where's my apple?' or a complaint about not getting something on his plate he felt he should get, or, 'Am I going to get a shower today?' you would get very little out of Reid," said Mr Hodge.

If he wants a new toothbrush he must first hand over his old one. They are issued to inmates with the handles filed down to a stump and only the brush remaining. He is allowed a shower once a day, for which he is escorted in handcuffs along the corridor, with one officer maintaining close contact with him and another there as back-up. Staff do not carry firearms inside the unit to avoid being targeted for their weapons. They carry just a baton and a radio and wear a panic -button at their waists that will relay their exact location to a control room and summon reinforcements in an emergency.

Before he re-enters his cell, Reid must be scanned by a special X-ray machine capable of detecting foreign objects under his T-shirt and sweatpants.

"For the other inmates, it's a case of undressing for a visual body-cavity search, but the Muslims have a religious issue that we need to respect," a prison source explained.

"They can take their shoes off though — you wouldn't want to forget to look in Richard Reid's shoes."

He is allowed books, including the Koran, newspapers, letters from outside, and a prayer mat. In addition to his prison issue white T-shirt, blue sweatpants and orange or blue deck shoes, he is also permitted to wear the traditional white kufi, or skullcap.

On his desk, which is built into the wall so that it cannot be moved, is a 12in television set with a see-through back so officers can check for missing parts or anything hidden inside.

The television delivers a diet of "educational" programmes such as anger management and literacy, a basic package of entertainment channels, and an in-house quiz. "It's a sort of Trivial Pursuit, with five or six different questions and the chance to win a candy bar if he gets them right," said one insider.

The colour scheme within the ADX is "pretty raw, pale army green, cement grey, off-white," said Gary Kalitolites, 44, a prison guard who quit the job last year.

"It's a very negative atmosphere. They can't see grass or trees, they will never feel the touch of a loved one, they will never see bright colours, they're deprived of the sensory stimulation that you and I know.

"Everyone in there is in a dark abyss. The isolation breeds paranoia, it's contagious.

"I don't know Richard Reid, but I'll tell you one thing. You put a dog in a cage and keep poking it with a big stick, don't expect it to stay nice."

U.S. District Court Judge William Young:
Mr. Richard C. Reid, hearken now to the sentence the
Court imposes upon you. ... we all know that the way we
treat you, Mr. Reid, is the measure of our own liberties.

On counts 1, 5 and 6 the Court sentences you to life in
prison in the custody of the United States Attorney General.
On counts 2, 3, 4 and 7, the Court sentences you to 20 years
in prison on each count, the sentence on each count to run
consecutive one with the other. That's 80 years.

On Count 8 the Court sentences you to the mandatory 30 years
consecutive to the 80 years just imposed. The Court imposes
upon you on each of the eight counts a fine of $250,000 for
the aggregate fine of $2 million.

The Court accepts the government's recommendation with
respect to restitution and orders restitution in the amount
of $298.17 to Andre Bousquet and $5,784 to American Airlines.
The Court imposes upon you the $800 special assessment.

The Court imposes upon you five years supervised release
simply because the law requires it. But the life sentences
are real life sentences so I need not go any further.

This is the sentence that is provided for by our statutes.
It is a fair and a just sentence. It is a righteous sentence.
Let me explain this to you.

We are not afraid of any of your terrorist co-conspirators,
Mr. Reid. We are Americans. We have been through the fire
before. There is all too much war talk here. And I say that
to everyone with the utmost respect.

Here in this court where we deal with individuals as
individuals, and care for individuals as individuals, as
human beings we reach out for justice.

You are not an enemy combatant. You are a terrorist. You are
not a soldier in any war. You are a terrorist. To give you
that reference, to call you a soldier gives you far too much
stature. Whether it is the officers of government who do it
or your attorney who does it, or that happens to be your view,
you are a terrorist.

And we do not negotiate with terrorists. We do not treat with
terrorists. We do not sign documents with terrorists.
We hunt them down one by one and bring them to justice.

So war talk is way out of line in this court. You're a big
fellow. But you're not that big. You're no warrior. I know
warriors. You are a terrorist. A species of criminal guilty
of multiple attempted murders.

In a very real sense Trooper Santiago had it right when first
you were taken off that plane and into custody and you
wondered where the press and where the TV crews were and you
said you're no big deal. You're no big deal.

What your counsel, what your able counsel and what the equally
able United States attorneys have grappled with and what I
have as honestly as I know how tried to grapple with, is why
you did something so horrific. What was it that led you here
to this courtroom today? I have listened respectfully to what
you have to say. And I ask you to search your heart and ask
yourself what sort of unfathomable hate led you to do what you
are guilty and admit you are guilty of doing.

And I have an answer for you. It may not satisfy you. But as I
search this entire record it comes as close to understanding as
I know.

It seems to me you hate the one thing that to us is most
precious. You hate our freedom. Our individual freedom. Our
individual freedom to live as we choose, to come and go as we
choose, to believe or not believe as we individually choose.

Here, in this society, the very winds carry freedom. They carry
it everywhere from sea to shining sea. It is because we prize
individual freedom so much that you are here in this beautiful
courtroom. So that everyone can see, truly see that justice is
administered fairly, individually, and discretely.

It is for freedom's seek that your lawyers are striving so
vigorously on your behalf and have filed appeals, will go on in
their, their representation of you before other judges. We care
about it. Because we all know that the way we treat you, Mr. Reid,
is the measure of our own liberties.

Make no mistake though. It is yet true that we will bear any
burden; pay any price, to preserve our freedoms.

Look around this courtroom. Mark it well. The world is not going
to long remember what you or I say here. Day after tomorrow it
will be forgotten. But this, however, will long endure. Here, in
this courtroom, and courtrooms all across America, the American
people will gather to see that justice, individual justice,
justice, not war, individual justice is in fact being done.

The very President of the United States through his officers will
have to come into courtrooms and lay out evidence on which
specific matters can be judged, and juries of citizens will gather
to sit and judge that evidence democratically, to mold and shape
and refine our sense of justice.

See that flag, Mr. Reid? That's the flag of the United States of
America. That flag will fly there long after this is all forgotten.
That flag still stands for freedom. You know it always will.
Custody, Mr. Officer. Stand him down.

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