Jihadi couple free in UK – because they won’t talk to police

A COUPLE suspected of joining IS and living in its so-called caliphate in Syria for four years are now back l i ving f reely i n Britain because police cannot find enough evidence to charge them.

The British pair were arrested at Manchester Airport on terrorism offences when they returned to England with their two children, who were born stateless in Syria.

But detectives had to release the couple on bail because they gave ‘ no comment’ responses during interviews and disclosed no information about their time in the wartorn country. Police also seized at least three electronic devices from the couple, but are unable to access any material because the gadgets are password-protected.

Now the pair are free to roam the streets, even though the husband was deemed so dangerous that the Home Office imposed a Temporary Exclusion Order (TEO) on him last year in an attempt to prevent him from re-entering Britain.

The family is living in Leicestershire, having won custody of their children after the youngsters were placed temporarily in foster care. The details of their case were revealed at the High Court recently, after the pair mounted a legal challenge to ‘ thwart’ Leicestershire Police’s investigation into them.

The court proceedings are estimated to have cost British taxpayers tens of thousands of pounds, as the couple claimed legal aid and instructed highly paid London barristers.

Counter-terrorist detectives had tried to obtain statements the pair made to the Family Court in order to win their children back from foster care. There, the couple are believed to have given more details about their time in Syria than they gave to the police during interviews, and detectives wanted to read the statements to help assist their own criminal probe. But when the police asked the Family Court to hand over the statements, the couple mounted a legal challenge at the High Court, before pursuing it to the Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court.

During the hearings, judges heard that the man and woman went to Syria separately in 2014, just as IS declared a caliphate over the territory it controlled in northern Syria and Iraq. They then met and married, and had their two children, who were identified in court as being aged three and two.

By November 2018, the British authorities became aware of the family as they fled Syria into Turkey, where they were captured and placed i n an i mmigration detention centre.

At that time, then Home Secretary Sajid Javid placed the TEO on the man, after apparently having seen intelligence that he might be a threat to national security.

Then, on January 9 this year, the family flew into Manchester airport with the knowledge of the British authorities. The adults were arrested and the children taken into care. Judge Andrew McFarlane, who presided over the case at the Court of Appeal, said: ‘ That core factual context does indeed establish a significant index of suspicion that the parents were engaged directly in radical or terrorist activities [in Syria].’

Lawyers acting for the husband and wife argued that the couple’s statements should not be handed over to the police, as they had a ‘right to silence’.

But three Appeal Court judges ruled i n favour of the police, upholding an earlier judgment that found the handover would not breach that right, because that right only existed during the police interviews. The statements are now with Leicestershire Police, which is assisting Greater Manchester Police with the criminal investigation.

‘The man was deemed a national security threat’

‘Couple fled Syria only to be captured in Turkey’