A British man has been arrested at Heathrow by counterterror police after Turkey said it had begun repatriating suspected Isis fighters to European countries, including one individual to the UK.
The move marks the first forced return to Britain of an individual suspected of travelling to support Isis in Iraq and Syria by Ankara, which has grown increasingly frustrated by the reluctance of its European allies to take responsibility for their citizens.
So far the UK has refused to repatriate Britons held in camps in northern Syria, and has even stripped some suspected Isis fighters of their citizenship, preventing any attempted return home.
Soon after Turkish authorities confirmed on Thursday that a Briton was among those being returned, Scotland Yard announced it had arrested a 26-year-old man on suspicion of terrorism offences on a flight from Turkey, adding the arrest is “Syria-related”. He remains in custody.
The Home Office said it did not comment on individual cases. But the Financial Times understands the man in question was captured inside Turkey, never having made it into the areas of Iraq and Syria which formed part of Isis’ self-declared “Caliphate”.
Turkey’s interior minister, Suleyman Soylu, said earlier this month that Turkey “is not a hotel” for foreign Isis members. This week, as Turkey launched a repatriation drive, Mr Soylu said that there were 250 suspected Isis members in Turkish deportation centres. A further 1,180 Isis members were in Turkish jails, he added, as well as 850 suspects detained in Syria during Turkey’s recent military incursion into the country’s north-east.
The UK has also faced criticism from the White House over its refusal to take responsibility. Announcing the death of Isis leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi last month, US president Donald Trump said the response of European nations was a “tremendous disappointment”.
“The [fighters] came from France, they came from Germany, they came from the UK. They came from a lot of countries,” he told reporters. “And I actually said to them, if you don’t take them, I’m going to drop them right on your border and you can have fun capturing them again.”
Turkish authorities announced this week that they had begun to send a string of Isis suspects back to their home countries, including people from Germany, France, Denmark and Ireland.
A US citizen spent several days stuck in the no-man’s land between Turkey and Greece. Turkey said he had asked to be sent to a “third country” and chose Greece — but Athens refused to accept him.
On Thursday, following a visit by president Recep Tayyip Erdogan to the White House, Turkey said that the US had agreed to take back the 39-year-old, who was reportedly of Jordanian origin. The interior ministry said the US would provide him with travel documents, adding that the repatriation process was under way.
