MPs in the Liberal Democrats, which has a record for requesting the government be soft on returning jihadis, have written urging the Home Secretary to revoke Asma al-Assad’s British citizenship.
Led by their foreign affairs spokesman Tom Brake (pictured, right), the party called on Amber Rudd to use her powers to withdraw the first lady of Syria’s British citizenship following an alleged chemical attack in the town of Khan Shaykhun that the UK and U.S. say was ordered by President Bashar al-Assad.
Accusing the London-born Mrs. Assad of having acted “not as a private citizen but as a spokesperson for the Syrian presidency”, the Carshalton and Wallington MP advised Britain to tell her: “Either stop using your position to defend barbaric acts, or be stripped of your citizenship.”
Backing the globalist party’s call was Tory MP Nadhim Zahawi, who said the Syrian first lady “is very much part of the propaganda machine that is committing war crimes”.
Mrs. Assad is active on social media, and in response to the launch of 60 U.S. Tomahawk missiles on the Shayrat air base in south-east Homs wrote: “The presidency of the Syrian Arab Republic affirms that what America has done is an irresponsible act that only reflects a shortsightedness, a narrow horizon, a political and military blindness to reality and a naive pursuit of a frenzied false propaganda campaign.”
The Liberal Democrats’ demand that the government take a hard line on Mrs. Assad, whose cardiologist father still lives in Acton, contrasts with the party’s approach to jihadis who would return to Britain from fighting for Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.
Former Lib Dem leader Sir Menzies Campbell said Islamist fighters should be allowed back into the UK as long as they renounce violence.
“I don’t think we could give them a total amnesty, but we could treat them leniently in return for completing a de-radicalisation programme,” The Guardian quoted him as saying.
And in 2014, the party’s then leader Nick Clegg dismissed plans to strip jihadis of their British passports, alleging that such a move would likely be illegal.
President Assad, who studied ophthalmology in the UK, last week said the alleged massacre in Khan Sheikhoun was “100 per cent fabricated”.
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