Turkey may send Isil suspects back even if citizenship is revoked

TURKEY has warned Britain and other countries that it will send captured Isil suspects and their families back home even if their citizenship has been revoked. Ankara, which has custody of more than 1,000 foreign Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil) militants, wives and their children after seizing parts of northern Syria, said it would not hold them forever.

The UK has so far refused to repatriate any of its nationals from Syria, including three orphans whose parents were killed in an airstrike on Bāghūz.

“We will send back those in our hands, but the world has come up with a new method: revoking their citizenships,” Soleyman Soylu, the Turkish interior minister, said yesterday. “They are saying they should be tried where they have been caught. It is not possible to accept this. We will send back [Isil] members to their own countries whether they revoke their citizenships or not,” he said.

Mr Soylu warned that Turkey would send captured Isil member sback to their home countries and complained of European inaction on the matter.

“They found an easy solution. They say, ‘I took his nationality away; it’s your problem now’. That’s unacceptable; it’s totally irresponsible,” he said.

It remains unclear whether Ankara will be able to extradite them in practice, however. Although under the New York Convention of 1961 it is illegal to leave someone stateless, several countries, including the UK, have not ratified it. The UK is known to have revoked the citizenship of at least 100 individuals for allegedly joining terrorist groups abroad, but the real number is thought to be higher.

Last night the sister of Abu Bakr albaghdadi, the slain Isil leader, was reportedly captured by Turkish forces and taken into custody. This has not been confirmed.