Britain seeks global database to help prosecute terrorists

Britain is pushing for the creation of a shared international database that will allow prosecutors to access data from the mobile phones of returning extremist fighters to secure convictions in their home countries.

Ninety people have been convicted in Britain over activities related to ISIL or the Syrian conflict, with the electronic analysis of phones and social media vital in many of the cases, the attorney general Jeremy Wright told an international law conference in London yesterday.

The government’s senior law adviser cited the case of Imran Khawaja, who was jailed for 12 years in 2015 after he travelled to Syria and took part in ISIL recruitment videos.

Lack of evidence obtainable from Syria meant there was no proof that Khawaja was involved in fighting, killing prisoners or “any of the other atrocities we know to have taken place” and receive a longer sentence, Mr Wright said.

Although some cases were forced to rely on electronic data because of difficulty in getting evidence from conflict zones, these prosecutions brought their own difficulties, he said.

In the average case, authorities retrieved electronic information that was equivalent to four million books of 500 pages each. More complex ones recovered five times that amount.

The move towards an international evidence database is in response to the deadlock at the UN Security Council, where Russia and China have blocked moves to allow the International Criminal Court to investigate human rights abuses in Syria. The UK proposal has gained traction in the last few months, the official said.

Mr Wright did not address the UN plan in his speech but said it was “very tricky” and some way from being put into practice.

In the absence of an international court, countries, mainly in Europe and North America, have taken the lead in prosecuting cases.

Officials from 12 countries have made 400 requests to an international group of lawyers that has amassed about 700,000 documents from Syria, said Stephen Rapp, a war crimes prosecutor and speaker at the conference, which was part-sponsored by the UK’s foreign office.

The UN is also setting up a body in Geneva to prepare prosecutions for war crimes in Syria in the absence of a tribunal to carry them out.