AN ASIAN teenager was killed by his racist white cellmate after they were placed together as part of a “gladiator” game in which prison officers laid bets on fights, an inquiry was told yesterday.

Zahid Mubarek died as a result of the game that was invented by “perverted” officers at a youth jail, a senior official in the Prison Officers’ Association claimed.

The game, known as Gladiator or Colosseum, involved placing incompatible prisoners in the same cell at Feltham Young Offender Institution in West London. Black and white prisoners, big and small, or one bully with another, were placed in the same cell while prison officers betted on the outcome.

Duncan Keys, the assistant general secretary of the association, disclosed the game at an official inquiry into the death of Mr Mubarek, 19, from Walthamstow in East London, in March 2000.

Mr Keys said that he made an anonymous telephone call to the Commission for Racial Equality, saying that the youth had died because of the game, because he feared that the association would take no action.

He identified Nigel Herring, the chairman of the local POA branch at Feltham in March 2000, as the “instigator” of the Gladiator or Colosseum game. He told the inquiry that Mr Herring had thought it was funny and laughed about it. Mr Keys also said that he had alerted senior prison officials, but had been told to “shut up”.

In an interview with police in July 2004, Mr Keys said he believed that the game amounted to a conspiracy to murder.

Mr Mubarak died seven days after he was battered in his cell by Robert Stewart, then 19, who was later jailed for life for murder.

In the call to the CRE, Mr Keys is recorded as saying: “I’m no bleeding heart on this but that kid was murdered for other people’s perverted pleasure. Mubarek was killed because people thought it was funny to see what would happen when they put a young Asian lad in with someone who wanted to kill Asians.

“Mubarek wasn’t the only victim there. He was the victim that died. Other people had this joke played on them as well. If they had two exceptionally tough prisoners that both wanted to rule the roost, they would be put in a cell together.”

But the game, which was “common knowledge” among staff, went dramatically wrong when Stewart, a psychopath, battered Mr Mubarak with a table leg. The inquiry was told that Mr Keys told the CRE in his call: “The wrong questions were asked. People are looking at the perpetrator of the crime.

“He did it but the reason he did it is because people thought it would be funny to see a racist have a go at a young Asian boy. And that is the truth.”

Mr Keys admitted that he had no direct evidence that Mr Mubarek’s murder was linked to the game.

He had heard it from Tom Robson, a member of the POA’s national executive committee with responsibility for Feltham in 2000, and the practice was well known by senior union officials, he claimed.

He said that he had telephoned the CRE because he believed that a cover-up was taking place.

Under cross-examination Mr Keys admitted to having invented the claim that Mr Herring was the instigator. Mr Justice Keith, the inquiry chairman, noted that Mr Keys’s testimony is disputed.

The inquiry continues today.

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