And finally, a piece from Friday for the Telegraph looking at what to do with the two ISIS Brits who were dubbed ‘the Beatles’ who were reportedly captured by Kurds. This aside spoke to a few media on this, to the World Weekly about ISIS more broadly, the Financial Times about Belt and Road, and finally, the Associated News of India picked up some of my comments from last week on the topic of Belt and Road. Et enfin, pour les lecteurs français, la bande dessinée que j’ai réalisée avec Wes a été traduite en français. Vous pouvez le trouver ici. Thanks again to Wes for his fantastic work on it!
Why returning jihadis need to face real justice – not the torture of Guantanamo Bay
What do you do with a terrorist named Ringo? The capture of the final two “Beatles” – four British jihadis jokingly named after the pop group by their peers – has reopened the question of what should be done with British nationals who have been foreign fighters.
Prior to their capture, this discussion in the UK was largely dominated by various politicians’ statements about how the best outcome with such cases was that they die on the battlefield. This bombastic answer may reflect the easiest outcome, but it should not be the desired intent. Most British people can probably agree that individuals captured alive should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law, depending on where they have committed crimes.
The first thing to remember is that not all foreign fighters are the same. Research into radicalisation shows that there are almost as many stories of radicalisation as there are people who radicalise; the same is true of people’s motivations for fighting foreign battlefields.
Some are drawn by ideological and religious motivations, some by a sense of excitement and adventure; others follow a relation or close friend, while others are driven by youthful naivety. Some cases are a combination of all of these motivations, and some for yet other reasons.
On top of this, when looking at a battlefield like Syria which has been dragging on for years, you have to consider the moment at which people went and which group they joined at that moment. Someone fighting alongside Isil in its earliest days was not necessarily joining the same organisation as someone who went in 2014. Stories of people going to Syria to protect the Syrians from their oppressive government are plausible at the start of the war; not so much once Isil came to dominate the situation.
Nor did all those who went out to fight end up doing the same thing. Some arrived, discovered it was not what they thought it would be, and simply came home. Others stayed, embraced what they found and participated in monstrous atrocities. Some were aid workers initially whose views changed once they were on the ground; others were very young and found themselves trapped. Some were born or brought to Isil’s “Caliphate” by fanatical parents who are now dead.
This list of pen portraits is important to bear in mind when we are formulating our response. Clearly if people have broken laws – if they have fought alongside proscribed terrorist organisations, or committed atrocities – then there have to be consequences. In some cases, this may mean people need to be tried in countries where they have broken the law. The focus should be on what people did, and the case handled in an open court of law.
In some cases, subsequent rehabilitation might be possible, but this should be handled in much the same way as other criminal behaviour is handled. People face up to their crimes, pay their dues to society and then society should be open to welcome them back as long as they do not break the law.
Bending or changing laws to deal with individual cases should certainly not be the norm. And placing people in limbo situations like those still stuck in Guantanamo Bay is not a good idea. Guantanamo was only ever meant to be a stopgap. Instead it became permanent, and has become an enormous headache with no clear resolution. Rather than anyone new getting sent there, people should be handled through courts systems for crimes they have undertaken.
Similarly, it is not clear that passport stripping is dealing with the problem. It may make it harder for people to travel back home, and it may make it easier for authorities to pass the responsibility on to someone else or handle individual cases in different ways, but it also leaves those people out in the world with a grudge against the home country.
So the answer for cases like those of the two captured Beatles is a fairly obvious one. They should suffer the legal consequences of their actions in whichever jurisdiction is appropriate. If they can be linked to criminal activity which the United States Department of Justice can and wants to prosecute, then they should be sent to America and prosecuted to the full extent of the law.
For the range of others who have gone to fight from the United Kingdom, each one needs to be dealt with in on a case by case basis. This may produce a long list of headaches for the Crown Prosecution Service, but this is the appropriate response from our country with its proud open and free judicial system.
This approach is not only crucial in bolstering our society and showing everyone is equal under the law, but also undermines the terrorists’ narrative of how capricious our societies are. It also is the exact opposite of the horrendous treatment that those tortured by the Beatles faced.
Raffaello Pantucci is Director of International Security Studies at Rusi
Mohammed Emwazi was drawn to radical ideas in his youth
Raffaello Pantucci 