https://arab.news/42rwd
- Jonathan Hall KC: ‘It wouldn’t prevent them from potentially being prosecuted for what they’ve done’
- Trump’s counterterrorism adviser has also urged Britain to take back citizens who joined Daesh
LONDON: The UK must consider repatriating British members of Daesh held in Syrian detention camps, the government’s independent terrorism adviser has said.
“Repatriation would not be moral absolution. If someone came back it wouldn’t prevent them from potentially being prosecuted for what they’ve done,” Jonathan Hall KC, the independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, told the BBC.
The incoming Trump administration’s counterterrorism adviser Sebastian Gorka has also urged the UK to follow the US lead and take back its citizens who joined Daesh.
“Any nation which wishes to be seen to be a serious ally and friend of the most powerful nation in the world should act in a fashion that reflects that serious commitment,” Gorka said.
“That is doubly so for the UK which has a very special place in President (Donald) Trump’s heart, and we would all wish to see the ‘special relationship’ fully re-established.”
One high-profile Briton who traveled to Syria to support Daesh is Shamima Begum, who left London as a teenager in 2015.
Her citizenship was stripped in 2019. Foreign Secretary David Lammy has said Begum “will not be coming back to the UK.”
Hall said: “It could be quite a pragmatic decision in the overall interests of national security to bring someone back.
“There is obviously some national security benefit of leaving people there because you don’t have to monitor them.
“On the other hand, there haven’t yet been any attacks in Europe by anyone who has been repatriated in this way and if they are left there ... and then they escape, they would be much more dangerous, actually, to the UK.”
The US and some European countries have repatriated their citizens from Syrian camps. Many have been put on trial and imprisoned.
Lammy said Begum’s case has been reviewed in court and the 25-year-old is “not a UK national.”
Many of the detainees are “dangerous, are radicals,” he told the “Good Morning Britain” show on Thursday.
Opposition leader Kemi Badenoch has also said Begum should not be allowed to return to the UK.
“Citizenship means committing to a country and wanting its success. It’s not an international travel document for crime tourism,” Badenoch said.