Zahid Mubarek

Zahid Mubarek

On March 31, 2001, the day before he was scheduled to be released, 19-year-old Zahid Mubarek was found bleeding and beaten. He died seven days later.

Mubarek had been sentenced to 90 days for stealing around $12 worth of razor blades. He was already incarcerated in Feltham Young Offenders’ Institution when 20-year-old Robert Stewart was moved into his cell.

Stewart was a dangerous offender with well-documented psychological problems. He had already stabbed another inmate to death and was fascinated with killing for racial reasons. Despite having records of over 186 incidents showing Stewart to be a violent, mentally unstable racist, prison officials still made the decision to pair him with Mubarek, who was of Pakistani descent.

On that soon-to-be-notorious night, Stewart broke the leg off a table and beat Mubarek to death. He was then moved to isolation, where he marked a swastika on the floor with the heel of his boot and was asleep 30 minutes later.

The murder was widely reported and caused a huge scandal in the UK prison system. In 2004, a Public Inquiry was opened to determine if Mubarek’s death was attributable to negligence on the part of prison officials. Since then, efforts have been made to improve conditions, especially for non-white prisoners.