A former inmate of Alcatraz has laughed off Donald Trump's proposal to reopen the notorious prison. The US President dropped a bombshell earlier this month when he posted on his Truth Social site that he was in favour of sending convicts back to the island prison in San Francisco.

Trump wrote that Alcatraz would once again become "a symbol of law, order and justice" and later told journalists it represents "something very strong, very powerful". He revealed he had "directed the Bureau of Prisons, together with the Department of Justice, FBI, and Homeland Security, to reopen a substantially enlarged and rebuilt Alcatraz."

His remarks provoked a wave of criticism and ridicule from some quarters, including from a former inmate.

Charlie Hopkins, 93, is the last known living man to have been incarcerated in the infamous jail.

He served three years at Alcatraz between 1955 and 1958 for kidnapping and robbery, and says that while he is a Trump supporter, the US President's plans are a non-starter.

In an interview with the BBC, he said: "He don't really want to open that place.

"He's just trying to get a point across to the public. It would be so expensive.

"Back then, the sewage system went into the ocean. They'd have to come up with another way of handling that.

"You can't go back in time. That place belongs to the past. It's deader than the convicts it held."

Originally built as a military prison, Alcatraz eventually housed some of America's most notorious and feared gangsters.

Some of these criminals included Al Capone, Mickey Cohen and George "Machine Gun" Kelly, as well as convicted murderer Robert Stroud, who would later become better known as the "Birdman of Alcatraz".

Alcatraz was considered escape-proof, but three men managed to break out of the jail in 1962, after digging a tunnel using spoons.

It remains unknown whether they made it to land safely and made good their escape.

The prison was shut down in March 1963 and has since been turned into a tourist attraction site, visited by around 1.4 million people per year.