The Australian has reported that three Australian men have contacted government agencies in the hope of coming home from fighting in Syria. Two of the men are believed to be affiliated with the Islamic State, and the other is allegedly associated with Jabhat al-Nusra.
Lawyer Rob Stary spoke to an ABC morning radio program today regarding one of the men. His client is a Victorian man who had his passport cancelled after working in Syria as a medic for IS, and wants to return home to his wife and children. Mr Stary spoke about the issue being getting his client home, rather than fighting the charges his client may face here in Australia.
“We’re not naive enough to suggest our client shouldn’t be charged if he’s committed any crime… He’s principally worked, on my understanding, as a medic in one of the camps controlled by those organisations,” he said.
“He would be vulnerable to being charged. I expect he would be charged.”
The Australian believes the client to be Abu Ibrahim, who spoke to a CBS reporter in February about some of the horrifying things he had seen in Syria.
“A lot of people, when they come, have a lot of enthusiasm about what they’ve seen online, what they’ve seen on YouTube,” Mr Ibrahim said.
“They see it as something a lot grander than what the reality is.”
Ibrahim is currently believed to be in Turkey, and said that he wanted to return to Australia as he felt like he was no longer able to help people in Syria:
“My main reason for leaving was that I felt that I wasn’t doing what I had initially come for and that’s to help in a humanitarian sense the people of Syria,” he said.
“It had become something else. So, therefore, no longer justified me being away from my family.”
According to
The Australian, Ibrahim has told authorities he wants to come back so he can tell would-be jihadists why they should not join Islamic State.
Stary, speaking on behalf of
Ibrahim, cited that Germany and Norway successfully employ people in similar situations to encourage de-radicalisation, and to stop other people attempting to join radical movements.
