Son of Sydney-born jihadist poses with crucified Christian
AN AUSTRALIAN boy photographed making an Isil movement salute in front of a human body hanging from a cross somewhere in the Middle East was entitled to return to Australia with his siblings, the country’s prime minister said yesterday.
However, Malcolm Turnbull, the prime minister, warned that children who returned from the battlefields of Syria and Iraq would be subjected to “the closest attention” to ensure Australians were safe.
“We will be utterly resolute in keeping Australians safe, and that applies to anyone who returns from the conflict zone, whether they are an adult or a child,” Turnbull told reporters.
Australian media published a photograph which had been posted on social media by Sydney-born convicted terrorist Khaled Sharrouf and showed his six-year-old son.
The smiling boy holds up his right index finger in a salute in front of an apparently lifeless body suspended from a cross with plastic cable ties. A sign hanging from the body said their capital crime was collaborating with Christians. Sharrouf’s Muslim-convert wife Tara Nettleton took their five children from Sydney to Syria to join their father in February 2014.
Nettleton died of surgery complications in September last year, but her mother Karen Nettleton continues to lobby governments for help to bring the children home.
Andrew Colvin, the Australian Federal Police Commissioner, said his officers were working with foreign partners toward prosecuting Sharrouf.
Sharrouf was among nine Muslim men accused in 2007 of stockpiling bomb-making materials and plotting terrorist attacks in Sydney and Melbourne, Australia’s largest cities.
He pleaded guilty to terrorism offences in 2009 and served less than four years in prison.