Double blow for Britain’s counter-terrorism efforts

LONDON // British authorities have suffered successive setbacks in their battle against suspected Islamist extremists, with one important trial collapsing and a high-profile figure in another case allegedly absconding to Syria.

The latest blows for law enforcement tackling ISIL-related crime closely follow warnings that European police forces are increasingly stretched by the sheer volume of investigations.

In one of the cases, a Briton arrested on suspicion of encouraging terrorism has skipped bail to flee with his family to Syria, prosecutors said.

The actions of Siddhartha Dhar, 31, who uses the name Abu Rumaysah on social media, have been interpreted by politicians and media as indicating that he intends to join the militant group.

Mr Dhar has repeatedly said he would like to live under ISIL rule.

He told Channel 4 television in August he was prepared to renounce his British citizenship, adding: “What I would say is that I would love to live under the Islamic State, I’d love to live under the Sharia, and I hope that one day Britain gets to live under the Sharia as well.”

Mr Dhar was among nine men arrested in dawn raids by British police in September.

But he was absent from a court hearing on Tuesday, when some of those arrested contested strict bail terms. One condition banned Mr Dhar from promoting Al Muhajiroun, a group outlawed in Britain as extremist and founded by another of those arrested, a controversial preacher, Anjem Choudary, who has also talked glowingly about ISIL.

Mr Dhar is believed to have fled to Syria on September 27, a day after his release on bail, but details were not revealed until Tuesday’s hearing.

Luke Ponte, a prosecutor, told the court: “He failed to comply with the conditions to surrender his travel documents to police. It’s my understanding that he is no longer in the jurisdiction and that he is currently in Syria.’

Mr Dhar took a coach from London’s Victoria station with his wife and four children, travelling initially to Paris, Mr Ponte said.

A former shadow interior minister, David Davis, said allowing him to surrender his passport, rather than seizing it, “seems at best careless and at worse a terrible error of judgement”.

Lord Carlile, who has served as an independent reviewer of UK terrorism law, told the BBC, using Mr Dhar’s pseudonym: “I am shocked and disappointed that this has occurred. Evidence of Mr Rumaysah’s statements at various times show that he wanted to leave the country, that he was at risk of leaving the country and that he wanted to join ISIL. So one would have hoped that the authorities were aware of that.”

Mr Dhar’s lawyer, Richard Dorman, said there was no certainty about his whereabouts and argued that the Syria theory “seems to be guesswork”.

In another blow for British authorities, the trial of a law student accused of plotting to murder the former UK prime minister, Tony Blair, or commit a Mumbai-style massacre on London streets has collapsed.

Erol Incedal, 26, most of whose case was closed to the public, will stand trial again in the new year.

The media are not allowed to report why the jury was discharged by the judge, Andrew Nicol, after four days of legal arguments.

European counter-terrorism forces have been strained by growing case loads since ISIL took over large areas of Iraq and Syria this summer. Scotland Yard said last month that it was under significant pressure from an "exceptionally high" number of inquiries.

Mark Rowley, Britain’s most senior counter-terrorism officer, said the number of arrests this year stood at 218, while police and other agencies were also intervening in 100 cases a week involving individuals suspected of preparing to travel to conflict zones.

His comments echoed remarks by Marc Trévidic, one of France’s best-known counter-terrorism judges, who has said French police and judges are ill-equipped to monitor the scores of recruits returning from conflict.

Europol, the EU’s crime intelligence agency, also voiced concern that Islamist extremism investigations were putting pressure on manpower in one of the biggest challenges facing police and security services.

Another aspect of the problem was highlighted by a farcical case in France in September.

A communications breakdown between France and Turkey was blamed after French police waited at the wrong airport 750 kilometres away from Marseille as three suspected extremists arrived from Istanbul in what was meant to be a straightforward custody transfer.

One of the three was a brother-in-law of Mohamed Merah, a self-styled French-Algerian Islamist who murdered seven people, including three Jewish children, in 2012 before police shot him dead in a siege of his flat in Toulouse, south-western France.

Another of the trio had previously served a jail term for terrorism charges. All three turned themselves in to police as details of the blunder became known.

foreign.desk@thenational.ae