A French politician is calling for the notorious South American prison Devil's Island to be reopened to house all suspected terrorists returning to Europe after fighting with extremists overseas.
Devil's Island prison, located in French Guiana in northern South America, is now a tourist attraction after serving as an exile for French political prisoners from 1852 to 1953, according to Express.co.uk.
But instead of entertaining tourists, a better use for the island located off Cayenne city would be to hold returning jihadists who committed atrocities in conflict-ridden Syria and Iraq, says Nicolas Dupont-Aignan, a former French presidential candidate.
"I believe that when a French person who joins the jihad comes back to France, he should be locked up far away," Dupont-Aignan, founder of the conservative DLF party, said according to Express.co.uk.
"I propose that we re-open a detention center in Cayenne so we can isolate these deranged idiots," he continued. "I am not suggesting any kind of forced labor camp, but a legal and humane prison in accordance with the law."
Devil's Island developed a nasty reputation as full of disease ridden and starving inmates before it closed down in 1953. Many of the 80,000 prisoners died from tropical diseases on the island, never to return to France.
It was also the location where the 1973 crime drama movie "Papillon" was filmed, starring Dustin Hoffman and Steve McQueen. The island is now used by the French research organization the National Center for Space Studies, according to the Daily Mail.
The politician's suggestion, while seemingly outrageous, comes at a time European officials are cracking down on suspected homegrown terrorists who leave to join Islamist extremist groups like the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq.
An estimated 1,000 to 4,000 French nationals are currently in Syria and Iraq, the Daily Mail reported. Two of them, Mickael Dos Santos and Maxime Hauchard, appeared in a video in November with several beheaded bodies, including that of an American aid worker.
Last month, a British woman was sentenced to 28 months in prison for trying to send money to her husband who was fighting with militants in Syria.
