The tipping point in the scales of justice?

At the trial of Adolf Eichmann in 1962, his defence for involvement in the Holocaust, was “just following the orders”, laid down by Adolf Hitler, the NAZI Party and their plan for the Final Solution. 

In 2017, Britain has echoed the words of Eichmann, to say that British citizens who joined the ranks of ISIS in Iraq and Syria, will not be prosecuted because their actions were "simply naive”. 

Max Hill QC, who is the Government’s reviewer of terror legislation has stated to The Telegraph, “we (the UK) should be looking at reintegration” of British IS fighters and confirmed “not a huge proportion of returnees had been prosecuted" because it was “often hard to prove someone had committed a crime in a war zone.” 

Whilst Britain feels unable to prove British ISIS members “had committed a crime in a war zone”, the contradiction here, is how Britain spent £60m on the Iraq Historic Allegations Team (IHAT), to investigate allegations of crimes against Iraqi civilians by UK armed forces in Iraq, “a war zone”, during the period of 2003 to July 2009. 

As a point of clarity, IHAT was initially set up in 2010 to investigate allegations from across Iraq and it was officially closed in 2017. Mosul was invaded by ISIL in 2014 and liberated in 2017. 

Around 850 Britons are thought to have travelled to Syria since 2011, which borders directly with neighbouring Iraq.Around 120 are believed dead fighting for groups including Islamic State and around half those remaining are thought to have already returned back to the UK. 

Hussein Al-alak is the editor of Iraq Solidarity News (Al-Thawra)

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