UK ‘silent’ over British jihadist captured in Syria
A REBEL group holding a British jihadist says it has not heard from UK authorities in five months and is now prepared to try him in Syria.
Shabazz Suleman, 22, of High Wycombe, Bucks, was caught in mid-october among refugees trying to escape to Turkey and has since been detained in a centre in Jarablus, northern Syria.
“No one has reached out to us about Shabazz,” Abu Alaa, a security officer from Liwa al-shimal (Northern Brigade), an opposition group that oper- ates under the umbrella of the Free Syrian Army, told The Daily Telegraph.
“There is no negotiation with the British authorities at all, they are not interested in him,” he said. “If no negotiations take place in the near future, Shabazz will be sent to trial. He will have to pay for the crimes he did.
“We are prepared, but trying to delay his trial as much as we can because we are still hoping for any contact from the British authorities.”
The development comes amid a heated debate over who is responsible for Western fighters captured on the battlefield, with the British Government perceived to be trying to block their return. In November, Suleman told The Telegraph he was prepared to return to Britain if he could strike a deal to ensure a lenient sentence.
Otherwise he would prefer to stay in Syria, where his hosts appear to be keeping him well-clothed and well-fed.
“They respect me here,” he said. “They treat me well.”
Suleman, a grade A student at the Royal Grammar School before leaving for Syria in 2014, claimed never to have fired a gun. He said he was jailed for some months in Raqqa after trying to defect. He eventually managed to escape Isil territory. Suleman would be tried in one of the opposition’s seven courts in northern Syria, where hundreds of Isil suspects have already been sentenced. A local judge told The Telegraph the majority of foreign Isil jihadists had been receiving between five to 10 years. “Our prisons are too full to keep them for too long,” he said.
The courts, which have no international recognition, have the power to pass life sentences, but not the death penalty. Some detainees have been sent to work off their sentences at a deradicalisation centre, where they receive lessons from imams on “moderate Islam”. A number of foreign fighters, including Ukrainian and Uzbek, have attended and been released after a short programme.
In response to Suleman’s case, the Home Office said: “Any decision on whether to prosecute will be taken by the police and Crown Prosecution Service on a case-by-case basis. Where there is evidence that crimes have been committed, those responsible should expect to be prosecuted for them.”