International task force needed to bring ISIS detainees to justice

Former UK anti-terrorism chief calls for multinational effort to gather evidence from around the world

The Syrian Democratic Forces keep watch on Al Hol camp, the larger of two Kurdish-run displacement camps for relatives of ISIS extremists in Syria. AFP

A well-resourced international task force is needed to bring to justice hundreds of ISIS terrorists languishing in detention camps in Syria, a former British terrorism chief said on Thursday.

Mark Rowley, the former head of UK counter-terrorism policing, said the repatriation of an estimated 2,000 foreign fighters held in Kurdish-run centres is hampered by problems gathering evidence to convict them on their return.

Victims and witnesses are scattered around the world while forensic evidence is still being assessed for crimes committed by multinational groups of terrorists.

"What is needed is a well-resourced global investigative effort to hold ISIS terrorists to account for atrocity crimes, such as the genocide of Yazidis, not just terrorism," Mr Rowley said in a letter to The Times.

"Only an international task force, with access to the best intelligence, that proactively integrates witness and other evidence can tip the scales. Only then can we legally imprison the majority of these terrorist fighters for the long term."

The US administration called for the repatriation of foreign fighters and their families from Syria because of concerns that violent, squalid camps are creating a new generation of extremists.

John Godfrey, US President Joe Biden’s special envoy for the global coalition to defeat ISIS, said that there were also an estimated 10,000 family members linked to the ISIS terrorists in the camps.

The foreign fighters represent about one fifth of all ISIS terrorists held in the camps, he said.

Mr Godfrey said the US had for several years been pressing European countries “to repatriate and rehabilitate and, where it’s appropriate and feasible, to prosecute foreign terrorist fighters” and their family members.

“A number of those children either have claims to, or already have, European citizenship. And so there is the concern that down the road they could end up being able to go to other places and potentially do bad things.

“This is an international problem that requires an international solution,” he said.

The National last month interviewed a 13-year-old former London resident who was living in one of the camps after his mother and siblings died after travelling to Syria to join extremists.

A small number of orphans were taken back to Britain but the teenager remains in limbo with no family coming forward to take responsibility for him.

The difficulty of prosecuting ISIS terrorists was highlighted by a deal struck to put two members of an alleged death squad known as the 'Beatles' on trial in the US because of problems in securing prosecutions in the UK.

Both were British citizens but had their citizenship stripped after joining ISIS.

A UK terrorism watchdog said last year that Britain had prosecuted just ten per cent of foreign fighters who had returned from Iraq and Syria.

The UK government estimates that a fifth of the 900 people who travelled from the UK to join the ranks of ISIS in Syria were killed, while another two fifths remain in the region. But by March last year, only about 40 of the 360 who came back to the UK were prosecuted.