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NEW SOUTH WALES — Australia’s first trial of technology to stop prisoners from using mobile phones has been launched in New South Wales.
The trial of phone-jamming technology has been talked about in NSW for 10 years. Today, with the press of a button, Justice Minister Greg Smith and Corrective Services Commissioner Peter Severin turned on the technology at Lithgow jail, two hours west of Sydney.
The maximum security prison is where convicted killer Bassam Hamzy was being held in 2008 when security cameras captured a mobile phone being passed between cells on a line of dental floss. Hamzy, who founded the Brothers For Life gang, was ordering brutal kidnappings from inside his cell and making more than 400 calls a day.
In 2009 mobile phones were also found in the cells of gang rapists Bilal and Mohammed Skaf at Goulburn prison.
The State Government says the issue of mobile phones being smuggled into jails is a huge problem across the world, with 200 confiscated in NSW prisons last year.
Full story: NSW jail trials phone-jamming technology