Senior counter-terrorism officers have revealed that UK authorities are allowing potential terrorists to leave the UK freely, if it is calculated that the Islamists are more dangerous left in this country.
The MI5 officer said that no one had been allowed to travel to war zones such as Syria, however. With potential terrorists attempting to leave for other nations, there was a “home and away debate” he said, whereby security forces continually decide whether it is safer to let someone go.
If it is probable that a radical will be less inclined to perpetrate violence abroad, in a Muslim-majority country, and if they have moderate family there who could influence them positively, they will be more likely to go free.
The issue has been brought to the fore by the recent case of Nadir Syed (pictured right above), who was found guilty of planning a Lee Rigby style attack on remembrance Sunday, as Breitbart London reported this morning.
Mr. Syed was prevented from traveling to Syria and joining Islamic State in April last year. He is thought to have only started planning his murderous campaign here in the UK after being prevented from joining the terrorist group abroad.
Talking to the Telegraph, a senior counter-terrorism officer said: “At this stage he was effectively landlocked. This is quite a critical issue and is obviously a dilemma for us in terms of taking passports off extremists.
“The dilemma is if they want to carry out a terrorist attack they are constrained to carry it out here.
“It is one of those risk factors when we take passports off people. Are we actually making the risk of them carrying out a terrorist attack here higher?”
He added: “It is called the home and away debate. Do you let them go? Are they going to be dangerous overseas or more dangerous here? It is a dilemma for us and it is not an easy one.
“It depends on other factors at play. It depends on where they are going to go and what they are going to do.
“If the risk of them carrying on being radicalised and carrying on this activity is reduced by them going to another country then there may be a consideration to let them go because they are more of a risk here and more of a threat here with the company they are keeping.
“They may have a relative or a family (overseas) and that may moderate them.”