ISIS jihadis can't be jailed when they return to Ireland as the govt never made laws against them
ISIS jihadis who have Irish passports and went to support the Islamic State in Syria will not face jail time according to Former army Lt Col Michael C. Murphy (@SITARMS) because the government never made any laws against their activities despite being warned my members of the Irish army.
Murphy spoke to Newstalk today where he made the remarks.
Asked whether he agreed with the government's decision to allow ISIS jihadis to return to Ireland if they have an Irish passport, he said he thinks the government has no other option.
"They failed before now to ensure that there was a law in place to make sure than anybody like this who went and travelled to an ISIS controlled area would face the full law when they came back in such things as a law that says to travel to an ISIS controlled area without a permit would automatically result in a ten year sentence.
"They have no choice now but to bring this person back and of course they are not going to be able to make sure the security situation afterwards is up to the standards that it should be because they don't have the security systems in place to ensure it."
Asked if Ireland should have had legislative change to make it a criminal offence to go and join ISIS, he replied:
"Correct. Many of us have been warning about this for four years or very shortly after ISIS was set up, and knowing that foreign people were travelling to that territory to join them and to get involved in their awful behaviour that it was necessary to have something in place to ensure that people, if they went there would know the consequences of travelling to them and giving them support."
Asked if there was any law they people who went to support ISIS may have broken, he replied
"As far as I know, no. They can bring her back and I would be very surprised — because if she, let's say anybody who went there — you need evidence and we, as the Minister of Justice admitted, we don't have an intelligence service operating on the ground to be able to collect that intelligence and then you need other people to give evidence and they aren't going to be available because where are you going to get them so therefor, this person will come back as the rest will be able to come back. They will probably be detained by the Guards for a short time and will have to be release because the government failed to put anything in place that such a scenario couldn't occur.
Asked if Ireland was good at surveillance due to our history, he replied we were not and that an assassination in broad daylight at the Regency Hotel proved that.
"We're running national security on the principle of what I call BSF — Bluff, Spin and Fingers-crossed nothing happens"
Two high profile ISIS supporters with Irish passports in Syria are Belarusian jihadi Alexandr Bekmirzev who sham-married a British waitress for three thousand Euros to get his Irish passport and Dundalk convert Lisa Smith who married an ISIS supporter.
Michael Murphy's tweet:
https://twitter.com/SITARMS/status/1105019602461954048
Broadcast: Newstalk Breakfast | Newstalk | 11 Mar 2019
https://www.invidio.us/channel/UCgzyycFR6PEv-B90rAiFsQg
