‘Fewer than one in five’ returning British “jihadis” charged

Of the 600 British nationals estimated to have travelled to Iraq or Syria, only 40 are thought to have been charged by the Crown Prosecution Service.

Fewer than one in five of the “British fighters” returning from Syria or Iraq have been charged by the Crown Prosecution Service, it was reported on Thursday.

An estimated 600 British citizens have travelled to Syria or Iraq to fight, of which around half are thought to have returned, according to the Home Office.

The police and the Crown Prosecution Service are pursing cases against just 40 of the estimated 300 people thought to have come back from fighting alongside the “jihadis”, according a Freedom of Information request seen by The Sun.

The news comes after Britain’s most senior counter-terrorism officer, Assistant Commissioner Mark Rowley of Scotland Yard warned of a “heightened concern” about the risk of an attack in the UK, in the wake of the Paris terrorist atrocities.

Earlier this week a police commander signalled that a senior “Isil” “jihadist” who faked his own death before trying to slip back to the UK could have been planning a terror attack here.

The Home Office told The Sun: “We will take the strongest possible action against those who have travelled to Syria and Iraq and return with the intention of doing harm.

“We have existing powers, but are toughening these even further to make sure we can defend ourselves against the serious and rapidly changing threats emerging from the region.”

This comes as US Secretary of State John Kerry insisted that IS’ momentum in Iraq had been halted, claiming that 50 per cent of “Isil” leaders had now been killed..

Speaking at a summit of the US-coalition in London, he called for international action on “the root causes, so that terrorist appeals fall flat and foreign recruits are no longer enticed to go to a place and wreak havoc on it”.

He added Iraqi forces would be getting lots of US made M16 rifles “very, very shortly”.

Meanwhile, Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond warned it could still take “two years” to kill off IS in the country.

The Telegraph

Maher Taki