Jihadists on trial

SIR – It is cowardly of Britain not to accept and put on trial the British members of Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant known as the “Beatles” (report, February 15). The US is already target number one for Islamists and their Western sympathisers. Why should it bear yet more of the burden?

Leaving these jihadists to Syrian or Iraqi justice is also unacceptable: no matter how much we might wish it, they were not killed in action and Britain does not support the death penalty, which would be the certain judicial outcome in those two countries. Or have we reintroduced the death penalty by proxy?

Most importantly, refusing to accept them allows Britain to ignore four fundamental questions that a trial would raise: what role did culturally dissonant mass immigration have in creating the seedbed of Islamist violence here; how were citizens of a “tolerant” multicultural society turned into religious murderers with a broad base of support; what is wrong with our legal system that we cannot trust it to try and punish these people; and is that third question a product of the first two, which is why we dare not ask any of them?

We may wash our hands of these Isil fighters; but in doing so, all we leave behind is dirty water for other evils to hide in.

Victor Launert

Matlock Bath, Derbyshire