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Death Sentence for a Whistleblower?

By Joel Mowbray

Feb 21, 2006

By the end of the month, Bureau of Prisons employee Joe Mansour faces what could well be a death sentence. His crime? After being ignored by BOP higher-ups, he warned Congress and the public about the spread of radical Islam in the federal prisons—and his employers’ inability to cope with the growing crisis.

During his disability leave—from which he is slated to return on February 27—Mansour has been informed of threats from Muslim inmates at the prison in Lee County, VA that he considers credible, which is why he has filed numerous transfer requests. Unfortunately for Mansour, his employer apparently does not feel the same. Though such requests are routinely granted, BOP has denied or ignored each one.

Mansour was interviewed on camera by NBC News last March, and he discussed his role in translating Arabic communications of inmates, including in terror-related cases. That was not all. Among other things, he was an acknowledged source for this journalist in a front-page Washington Times story last July on BOP’s lack of Arabic translators. Consequently, he says, many Muslim inmates who used to harbor less suspicion of him because he’s Muslim now view him as a traitor, someone who has attacked Islam.