UK’S weak laws to be beefed up to tackle terrorists
New offences will make it easier to prosecute returning jihadists as row rages over Javid letter to US
By Gordon Rayner and Steven Swinford TERRORISTS who set foot in no-go areas such as Syria will face automatic prosecution under new laws being proposed to make it easier to bring returning jihadists to justice.
Just one in 10 British jihadists who come back to the UK after fighting with Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil) or other terrorist groups are currently brought to justice, with an average jail term of around five years.
But Ben Wallace, the security minister, told MPS yesterday that new offences will be introduced to beef up counter-terrorism laws that currently hamper prosecutions. It came as a former home secretary said ministers had surrendered the right to block extraditions on human rights grounds after the Government waived its objection to the death penalty in the case of two members of Isil.
Lord Blunkett said that in future it would be up to “who we like and who we don’t like” to decide whether a suspect with British connections should be put to death. Labour described the decision as “abhorrent and shameful”.
Whitehall sources have disclosed that Mr Javid had not set a precedent, as the coalition government, in power from 2010-15, decided not to seek an assurance that the death penalty would not be used. It involved a non-terrorist case in which a criminal was tried abroad in a country other than the US.
In a letter to the US attorney general revealed by The Daily Telegraph yesterday, Sajid Javid, the Home Secretary, highlighted the weakness of British counter-terrorism laws in dealing with jihadists returning to the UK from Syria, Iraq and elsewhere. He cited the problems of British laws as part of his justification for sharing intelligence in the case of Alexanda Kotey and Shafee El-sheikh, two members of the Isil execution squad nicknamed “The Beatles”, without insisting they are spared the death penalty.
He said the US has “additional charges for terrorism offences which are not available under UK criminal law, and those offences carry long sentences”.
A Telegraph analysis of returnees who have been convicted in UK courts shows that they receive prison sentences averaging just five years, while 90 per cent of returning jihadists never appear in court because of the difficulty of gathering evidence of their activities in war zones.
Mr Wallace told the House of Commons: “We will be introducing new offences within the counter-terrorism and border security bill … which will strengthen our existing terrorism legislation to increase our ability to prosecute returning foreign fighters in future.” The Telegraph understands that ministers intend to introduce a law that will make war zones no-go areas, borrowing from Australian laws that impose jail terms of up to 10 years for anyone who travels to a so-called “designated area”.
The change, which follows a campaign by John Woodcock, the independent MP, would mean an automatic assumption under the law that anyone who travels to parts of Syria, Iraq or other war-torn countries would have committed an offence unless they could prove they had a legitimate reason for being there, such as aid work.
Under current counter-terrorism laws, prosecutions fail because of the difficulty of gathering evidence of an offence committed abroad that threatens British national security.
Terrorists such as Kotey and Elsheikh could only be returned to the UK by means that would contravene UK laws, whereas US laws pay no attention to how a suspect is brought to the US.
Sir Michael Fallon, the former defence secretary, suggested in the Commons yesterday that the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) helped protect jihadists from prosecution, and suggested it was “time to take back control” by leaving it. Mr Wallace said leaving the ECHR, which is separate from the EU, was not necessary.
But Lord Blunkett said yesterday that waiving assurances over the death pen-
‘[New offences’] will increase our ability to prosecute returning foreign fighters in future’
‘[This is] a very, very bad principle. Once you have made an exception, then where do you go?’
alty was “a very, very bad principle”. He told the BBC: “Once you have made an exception, then where do you go?
“On what cases would the home secretary then be able to go back to the US and say: ‘we want to extradite these people, we would like you to give us a guarantee in relation to the death penalty’?”
Hilary Benn, the Labour MP, argued that “it is precisely because of the barbaric nature of the crimes of which (Kotey and El-sheikh) are accused that we as a country have to show that we are better than them and what they did”.
Yvette Cooper, the Labour MP and chairman of the home affairs select committee, said that the UK had a longstanding principle of opposing the death penalty in all circumstances, but “the Home Secretary seems to have unilaterally ripped up those principles on a Friday afternoon in the summer”.
Mr Wallace said Mr Javid had followed the Government’s overseas security and justice assistance guidance on human rights, and that Prime Minister had agreed with him.