‘I stole a mobile phone almost 20 years ago - I've spent half my life in prison'
A father who stole a mobile phone when he was in the grips of a drug addiction is still languishing in prison almost 20 years later under an 'inhumane' indefinite jail term.
Leroy Douglas, 43, was told he must serve a minimum of two years and six months for robbing a man's phone behind a train station to feed his habit in 2005.
Despite getting clean inside and completing 36 prison courses, he has served his sentence almost eight times over and still has no release date as he remains trapped on a now abolished Imprisonment for Public Protection (IPP) jail term.
In a heartfelt appeal from prison, he begged: 'This IPP sentence is cripplingly cruel. My detention has become inhumane and degrading and they ought to intervene now.'
His appeal comes after the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture Dr Alice Edwards warned the government is 'very likely' breaching some IPP prisoners' human rights as she issued fresh calls for the government to resentence those neglected under the jail term.
Dr Edwards told The Independent: 'Keeping them locked up indefinitely, without a clear path to release, is simply inhumane.
'Some of the IPP prisoners are very likely being detained arbitrarily, by international standards. Notably those who have been incarcerated for longer than they would have been on the ordinary definite sentencing system.'
The open-ended sentence was abolished in 2012 due to human rights concerns, but not retrospectively, leaving thousands trapped until a Parole Board deems them safe for release.
Of 2,614 people still incarcerated on an IPP jail term, 127 prisoners like Douglas have served at least 15 years longer than their original minimum term. He is understood to be one of 186 people who have served at least five times longer than their original sentence.
Others caught up in the abolished sentence for minor crimes include Thomas White, 42, who set himself alight in his cell after serving 13 years for stealing a phone; James Lawrence, 38, who is still in prison 18 years after he was handed an eight-month jail term; and Abdullahi Suleman, 41, who is still inside 19 years after he was jailed for a laptop robbery.
Another IPP prisoner, Yusuf Ali, 50, was left skeletal and fighting for his life after spending 61 days on hunger strike over his jail term.
Despite more than 90 suicides inside prison and repeated calls from the justice committee, the UN and the architect of the flawed sentence Lord David Blunkett, successive governments have refused to resentence IPP prisoners.
Douglas, from Cardiff, described his incarceration as 'arbitrary' after he was denied release at his last parole hearing in 2023, despite a psychologist recommending he is freed. Shockingly, the Parole Board even got his name wrong in their refusal documents.
'20 years in jail for stealing a mobile phone... stole half my life,' he told The Independent from inside HMP Stocken, in Rutland.
'I'm very remorseful and accept full responsibility for my previous offending behaviour. I know what it's like to be a victim since I have been racially attacked and cut my face whilst in prison.
'My detention has clearly become arbitrary, no longer necessary. I've completed 36 courses to reduce perceived risk factors in order to help with being released.'
In the early stages of his sentence, he made a successful compensation claim against the Ministry of Justice for breaching his human rights by denying him access to courses necessary for his release and was paid several thousand pounds, but the government said it no longer had records for claims made so long ago.
Douglas received his first conviction aged 15 after he started smoking cannabis which soon progressed to harder drugs, including heroin. He racked up several convictions after stealing to fund his addiction.
He was eventually handed an IPP term after he robbed a mobile phone from a friend behind Cardiff train station. No one was hurt in the incident, which he claims he committed while on licence because he wanted to get arrested to get a community order for drug treatment.
Despite remaining clean for years in prison and receiving no violent convictions, although he was handed a five-week sentence for money laundering in 2020, he has been refused parole because of his disruptive behaviour as he loses hope of ever being freed.
A psychologist found he is 'institutionalised, feels aggrieved by his continued incarceration and hopeless in his ability to progress' and engages in 'maladaptive behaviours' to in a bid to maintain some control over his situation, in reports seen by The Independent.
Concluding he can be safely managed in the community, the expert added: 'I feel continued incarceration will only amplify his feelings of hopelessness and continue to destabilise him.'
During his time in prison, Douglas has lost family members, including one of his two daughters, who died aged 19 in 2021.
The father, who dreams of opening his own business on the outside, said he had received 'more than my just desserts' for his crime and called for the justice secretary Shabana Mahmood to use her powers to order his executive release.
'It would mean everything to me to be released from jail,' he said. 'I could get on with my life and start the second chapter of my life. Meet a nice woman… maybe marry and stay crime free.
'I stole a mobile phone with no physical violence in 2005 and I've had more than my just desserts doing 19 years in jail. My detention has become unlawful and no longer necessary for the protection of the public.'
Campaigner Shirley Debono, who co-founded IPP Committee in Action, has been supporting Douglas in prison.
'The whole system has failed him,' she said. 'I just feel so sorry for him. He's one of the ones whose not committed any violence in prison and tried to hold himself together.
'He should never have been kept in prison all these years. The prison system has let him down massively.'
In changes passed before the general election, licence conditions for IPP prisoners were reduced from 10 years to three. However, both Conservative and Labour governments have resisted calls to resentence IPP prisoners to determinate jail terms, with prisons minister Lord Timpson insisting they will not overrule the Parole Board.
A Ministry of Justice spokesperson said: 'It is right that IPP sentences were abolished. With public protection as the number one priority, the Lord Chancellor is working with organisations and campaign groups to ensure appropriate action is taken to support those still serving these sentences, such as improved access to mental health support and rehabilitation programmes.'
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When Kabul fell on August 15, 2021, Afghanistan's ambassador to Italy and the UN agencies stationed in Rome was travelling through Madrid airport. As a vocal critic of the Taliban, Khaled Ahmad Zekriya knew he needed to get back to the embassy in the Italian capital as a matter of urgency, as Western forces withdrew from his home country. 'There was an Afghan woman at the airport and she literally collapsed,' he remembers. 'That's when I first realised what had happened. I made it back to Rome at around 10 o'clock at night and we immediately removed the flag from the front gate.' The career diplomat had been posted to Italy for less than a year when the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan under President Ashraf Ghani was overthrown – to be replaced by an 'interim' all-male administration of hardline clerics, seasoned fighters and wanted terrorists. Many, including Zekriya, had seen it coming following the signing of the United States-Taliban deal in Doha, Qatar, 18 months earlier, which significantly weakened the Afghan National Defence and Security Forces' resistance to the Taliban insurgency amid false promises of a more 'inclusive' approach. For Afghanistan's diplomats stationed around the world – the last remaining outposts of the now-deposed government, established after the US-led invasion in 2001 – it posed a serious challenge. Should they swear allegiance to the new Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, or face being completely cut off from their homeland – or worse? As someone who has made nurturing democracy in the country his life's work, Zekriya was never going to surrender. 'I'm not going to work with a government that espouses extreme Islamic views,' he says. 'It's not a legitimate government.' Today, almost four years on from the capture of the capital where he was born and raised, the father of one remains an ambassador adrift. While the palatial Afghan embassy in Via Nomentana, dating back to 1914, does carry out limited consular services, its consular paperwork is not officially recognised by the Taliban, leaving Zekriya, 56, his Afghan wife Lina, 47, and the mission's dwindling staff in limbo. How the funding works is, for now, off the record. 'I knew that the Republic would collapse eventually,' he nods, recalling the last election, when both the incumbent Ashraf Ghani and his opponent Abdullah Abdullah claimed to have won, quite preposterously holding concurrent inauguration ceremonies. 'We had two presidents who thought they had both been elected. Imagine! These were elections where voters lost fingers.' Lost fingers? 'They were chopped off by the Taliban if they didn't vote in the right way,' he explains. 'The Doha agreement that was meant to lead to the formation of an inclusive government through intra-Afghan dialogue; that never happened.' As soon as the deal was signed, 8,000 contractors who had been taking care of transportation, logistics and maintenance left Afghanistan. 'We knew that after their departure, the military would collapse. It wasn't that the military was not brave. We fought. We lost close to 72,000 men and women alongside the Americans, the Italians and others. But when you look back on it, the Taliban were regrouping right under the very noses of the US and then hoodwinking them into believing that they were more moderate than their predecessors,' Zekriya continues. 'I've said it from the beginning, that there is no such thing as moderate Taliban. So I knew it was coming and I knew I had to improvise.' As chaotic scenes played out on the world stage, with the Americans orchestrating the largest non-combatant evacuation operation in US military history, and our own foreign secretary Dominic Raab holidaying in Crete, plucky Zekriya was preparing to defend himself from an internal coup attempt. 'The reason I took the flag from downstairs to upstairs was to protect this symbol, which personifies everything; the territorial integrity of Afghanistan, the sovereignty of Afghanistan, the independence of Afghanistan, its historical flag. 'But the most important thing for me was to protect this embassy, this enclave, because I knew sooner or later, there would be dissent, there would be diplomatic mutiny. I knew I had to keep it open, not only to provide consular services but also to be able to represent Afghanistan, in both bilateral and multilateral forums. 'We're providing cultural diplomacy, human rights diplomacy, ecclesiastical diplomacy and we have certain projects that we're working on with various organisations to assist girls in Afghanistan. We're working very hard because we believe the only way we can prevail in Afghanistan is through negotiation; through peace.' A voice for moderate Muslims at home and abroad Having served in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and taught diplomacy to Afghan civil servants, the music-loving University of California San Diego graduate knew he had to remain a voice for moderate Muslims both at home and abroad. But one diplomat at the embassy, which serves about 23,000 Afghans in Italy, had other ideas and attempted to overthrow Zekriya. 'He entered the embassy and physically assaulted me but I was able to protect myself,' says the ambassador, recalling the incident, which happened a few months after Kabul fell in 2021. The Taliban sympathiser was kicked out, along with others pledging allegiance to their new jihadist masters. Others simply fled. 'I had to block certain bank accounts to make sure they wouldn't have access and then I also had to look to the future. How are we going to be able to maintain this embassy with the little money we had? How were we going to pay people's wages?' Last year, the Taliban announced that the consular paperwork of 14 of Afghanistan's missions abroad – including in Italy – was null and void. 'We used to issue 20 to 30 visas a month – but now we can't issue any,' Zekriya explains. 'Documentation for Afghans, power of attorney, inheritance papers and so on, that is no longer accepted either. But we can certify paperwork and that is where we are still able to maintain the embassy. We've had to use our ingenuity to keep the place open.' In common with the rest of the world, Giorgia Meloni's government does not formally recognise the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. And unlike the UK, which closed its Afghan embassy when the Taliban sacked all staff, Italy has been supportive of this embassy's quest in continuing to provide consular services to Afghans. 'We have a lot of history with the Italians,' Zekriya says, as he proudly gives me the grand tour of the building, which boasts gilt-edged furniture, elaborate works of art and even classic cars in the garden, which have been there since the 1970s. The suited and booted ambassador is quite a character: modern in his outlook, animated in conversation and boasting an admirable sense of humour considering the adversity he is facing. Italy was one of the first nations to recognise Afghanistan's sovereignty in 1919. In 1921, the countries signed an agreement for the exchange of permanent diplomatic missions, and the embassy in Rome was bought by the modernising King Amānullāh Khan in 1928. After he was deposed the following year, he and his family – including Queen Soraya Tarzi – settled in exile in Rome, having been invited by Queen Elena of Italy. Many of their children and other descendants, including Princess India of Afghanistan, were raised in Italy; some still call the country home. When King Mohammad Zahir Shah was deposed in 1973, he was also exiled to Italy, living in Rome until his return to Afghanistan 29 years later. He was flown to Kabul on 18 April 2002, on an Italian military plane. The only church in Afghanistan, the chapel in Kabul, was at the Italian embassy and was maintained by an Italian until it had to be closed in 2021. As the Taliban regained control over Afghanistan, Italy withdrew its military contingent and moved its embassy to Qatar. Although Zekriya suggests that there are a 'very small number of pragmatic Taliban', he cautions, 'as far as moderation is concerned – no, because this runs contrary to their Islamist or jihadist ethos. It's very difficult to change a terrorist organisation and their perception of the world. They do not believe in international conventions. They do not believe in universal values. They do not believe in a what I would call a principled, value-driven world order. Bureaucratic hierarchy doesn't exist.' Zekriya is surprisingly calm and measured as he speaks – but you can tell his heart is aching for his homeland and his people. 'The Taliban have taken all the jobs. And right now corruption has become institutionalised in Afghanistan, along with the institutionalisation of certain terror tactics. Everyone's involved. Al-Qaeda is there, Isis is there, you know, the martyr brigade – you name it.' 'There are about 26, 27 terrorist groups in Afghanistan' Some people naively believed that the death of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in 2011 – a decade after 9/11, one of many terror attacks he masterminded – would signal the end of the pan-Islamist militant organisation. 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