BRITAIN’s overcrowded prisons are internationally recognised as unfit for purpose, campaigners said today after a German court blocked the extradition of a suspected drug trafficker over human rights concerns.

Lawyer Jan-Carl Janssen won the release of a suspected Albanian drug dealer, who is accused of trafficking 5kg of cocaine and laundering about £330,000 while in Britain, by telling judges in south-west Germany about the inadequacies of British prisons.

Today, Howard League for Penal Reform campaigns director Andrew Neilson said: “Our prison conditions are not only unable to provide a healthy and safe environment for the people in them but are now internationally recognised as unfit for purpose.