Prisoner ‘murdered’ in south London

A man allegedly murdered in jail in south London has been named as Wadid Barsoum, 66.

Barsoum was found in a cell at Britain’s largest prison, Wandsworth.

The Metropolitan Police said officers were called to the jail to reports of a male prisoner dead in a cell.

A police spokesman said Taras Nykolyn, 46, also of HMP Wandsworth, had been charged with murder and will appear in custody at Wimbledon Magistrates’ Court.

He added: “This follows an incident inside HMP Wandsworth at approximately 07:35hrs on 4 May.”

A Prison Service spokeswoman has said: “An HMP Wandsworth prisoner was pronounced dead in hospital at 8.52am on Monday 4 May.”

Wandsworth, a category B jail, can hold more than 1,800 prisoners. Alongside Liverpool, which is of similar size, it is one of the biggest prisons in Western Europe.

It was built in 1851, and the residential areas remain in the original buildings.

Since 1989, there has been extensive refurbishment and modernisation of the wings, including in-cell sanitation, privacy screens for cells occupied by more than one prisoner and the more recent installation of in-cell electricity.