Former UK minister urges government to repatriate ISIS families from NE Syria
QAMISHLI, Syria (North Press) – David Davis, former British minister, urged his government to repatriate the ISIS-related British families detained in camps in northeast Syria.
Davis urged the Foreign Office to review its policy and take responsibility for its own citizens, who he said are being held without charge, the National, a news website reported on Tuesday.
There are about 60 Britons, including 35 children, in northeast Syria’s camps. The UK has struggled to prosecute its citizens who joined the jihadist outfit due to the high bar on criminal liability. Instead, the UK government has preferred to strip those who traveled to Syria and Iraq of their citizenship where possible.
Foreign Office minister, David Rutley, said UK security remains the priority before adding the Government will decide what action is necessary against people who fought for or supported the ISIS terror group, according to The National.
The British government repatriated only a woman from northeast Syria in October 2022. The repatriation was done during a visit paid by UK Special Representative for Syria, Jonathan Hargreaves, and British Foreign Office delegate, Nicola Moss, to the Department of Foreign Relations of the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES) in the city of Qamishli.
The National cited Jonathan Hall KC, independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, as saying that Shamima Begum and other British women who joined ISIS should be allowed to return to the UK.
Hall added that failing to permit Begum to return could lead the UK to be an “outlier” in Europe and prompt some to use the situation to brand the camp where she is held as “Britain’s Guantanamo”.
The most famous ISIS bride, Begum, a British-born woman who traveled to Syria at the age of 15, joined the group in Syria with two friends in 2015. She does her best to return to Britain, which had stripped her of her citizenship in 2019.
Since the fall of the ISIS caliphate, Begum has been held in various camps run by the AANES. Currently, she is being held at Roj camp, which holds around 2,600 former ISIS members. A majority are foreign nationals. The AANES has repeatedly called for their repatriation.
“Most of Nato, including America, Canada, France and Germany, have repatriated their citizens from detention facilities in Syria,” Davis told the House of Commons. “The United Kingdom repeatedly refuses to do so and is now an international outlier.”
“Twenty-five British families are held in Syrian detention facilities without charge or trial,” he noted.