More than 400 people who fought with the so-called Islamic State (IS) group have returned to the UK without being prosecuted for their crimes, MPs and peers have found.
Parliament’s Joint Committee on Human Rights (JCHR) said IS fighters who participated in killings, terror attacks and the persecution of minorities in the Middle East must face justice.
IS, which once held large swathes of land in Syria and Iraq, was responsible for widespread campaigns of terror, murder and rape often targeted against minority religious groups like the Yazidis and Shia Muslims.
MPs and peers on the JCHR have now called on ministers to ensure the ex-militants can be tried in British courts, rather than in Iraq or Syria where the crimes took place.
The government has previously said any such crimes are ‘best investigated and prosecuted under local laws’, according to the committee.
But members of the JCHR aid this was unlikely to happen in the countries where IS operated.
‘Where the UK has jurisdiction over international crimes, the UK should seek to investigate and prosecute such crimes,’ their latest report said.
Currenly, it is not possible to prosecute any individuals for war crimes or genocide unless they are UK nationals, residents, or ‘subject to service personnel laws’.
IS, which once held large swathes of land in Syria and Iraq , was responsible for widespread campaigns of terror, murder and rape often targeted against minority religious groups like the Yazidis and Shia Muslims
A mass funeral for Yazidi victims of the Islamic State (IS) group in the northern Iraqi village of Kojo in Sinjar district, on February 6, 2021
An Iraqi man prays for his slain relative at the site of a mass grave believed to contain the bodies of Iraqi soldiers killed by Islamic State group militants when they overran Camp Speicher military base in Tikrit, Iraq
Ministers must use the Crime and Policing Bill currently making its way through Parliament to amend the law, and ensure anyone suspected to have committed genocide or war crimes can face justice in the UK, the committee added.
Lord Alton of Liverpool, chairman of the JCHR, said: ‘This is not something the UK can simply wash its hands of because it happened overseas. We know that British nationals committed the most horrendous crimes in Iraq and Syria under the Daesh regime and we have a duty to see them brought to justice.
‘To date, no Daesh fighters have been successfully prosecuted for international crimes in the UK and we find this unacceptable.
‘We want to see more action from the Government in identifying the perpetrators, some of whom may have returned to Britain, others likely detained in camps in Syria. This will require better co-ordination from law enforcement and criminal justice, and also the removal of barriers preventing some prosecutions.’
The JCHR also called for greater transparency about how the Government uses its power to strip British people of their citizenship because of links with IS.
Shamima Begum, who travelled to IS-held territory a decade ago, aged 15, is the most famous example of the state’s use of this power.
But the report said the UK ‘uses deprivation of citizenship orders more than almost any country in the world’, and ministers must account for this.
Syrian women sit next to the fence during a sandstorm at a temporary refugee camp in the village of Ain Issa, housing people who fled Islamic State group’s Syrian stronghold Raqa
Lord Alton of Liverpool, chairman of the JCHR, said: ‘This is not something the UK can simply wash its hands of because it happened overseas’
The JCHR also called for greater transparency about how the Government uses its power to strip British people of their citizenship because of links with IS – Shamima Begum, who travelled to IS-held territory a decade ago, aged 15, is the most famous example of the state’s use of this power
More must also be done to repatriate children held in camps in north-east Syria, the committee said, where conditions are ‘deplorable’, according to Lord Alton.
He added: ‘It is in the UK’s interest to ensure they do not become a new generation of the radicalised and they must be brought home.’
IS waged a brutal crackdown on religious minority groups when they seized control of areas in the Middle East between 2014 and 2019.
In 2016, former US Secretary of State John Kerry declared that the violence initiated by IS against Shia Muslims and others in Iraq and Syria amounted to genocide.
The Ministry of Justice were contacted for comment.
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