You can't always get what you want - the UK's grandstanding over ISIS sympathizers

[Aimless]

Eh. No. You are the one who is making up things. First show me cases of people who were convicted for anything else than traveling to Syria.

Hassan Al-Mandlawi and Al Amin Sultan, convicted (life terms) for participation in the murder of two men. Haisam Omar Sakhanh convicted for murder. These three were members of islamist groups in Syria. Others have been convicted of committing atrocities where the victims have been captive jihadists or regime soldiers. The same commission has convicted people of war crimes and crimes against humanity in Rwanda, Afghanistan, Ethiopia, the Balkans etc. Rwanda and the Balkans are especially interesting because of the lessons we've learned from those places about the value of being able to gather evidence on site. I have no details on the German cases because I don't know any German but they were alluded to during the reports of the trial of the first two people I mentioned. Regardless, the risk of being investigated, prosecuted and convicted is clearly infinitely greater than zero, and the ability to gather witness testimonies on-site would improve the chances of successful prosecution considerably.

[Hazir]

Two idiots stupid enough to be in a video with their faces visible. At a time they still believed that they could solidify it. Try again.

[Aimless]

Two idiots stupid enough to be in a video with their faces visible. At a time they still believed that they could solidify it. Try again.

I have no need to try again because you were quite obviously wrong and continue to be wrong. I have no intention of playing Brexit-ball with you just because you have difficulties accepting that you are wrong.

[Hazir]

I have no need to try again because you were quite obviously wrong and continue to be wrong. I have no intention of playing Brexit-ball with you just because you have difficulties accepting that you are wrong.

Actually, I am not wrong. It's you who think the dead hand of legalism is going to deal with this problem. Wake up and smell the coffee; it will not. Rely on it the way you do and you will be sharing space with murderers who decapitated people for crimes as heinous as being postman, raped sex-slaves who they kept in their family home untill they got tired of them. Homes they stole from the owners, who very often paid for that privilege with their lives.

So you dream on with your fantasies of 'innocent' ISIS colonists returning from Syria, or your legal system being capable of sifting out the murderers, rapists and thieves from the mass of people who only went to Syria for 'humanitarian reasons' or merely worked there as 'car mechanics'.

[Aimless]

Actually, I am not wrong. It's you who think the dead hand of legalism is going to deal with this problem. Wake up and smell the coffee; it will not. Rely on it the way you do and you will be sharing space with murderers who decapitated people for crimes as heinous as being postman, raped sex-slaves who they kept in their family home untill they got tired of them. Homes they stole from the owners, who very often paid for that privilege with their lives.

So you dream on with your fantasies of 'innocent' ISIS colonists returning from Syria, or your legal system being capable of sifting out the murderers, rapists and thieves from the mass of people who only went to Syria for 'humanitarian reasons' or merely worked there as 'car mechanics'.

"Actually, I am not wrong." Yeah, actually, you are wrong. You are quite literally wrong, as is plainly obvious from the posts in this thread. You claimed that the likelihood of getting prosecuted and convicted, in Sweden, for crimes committed in eg. Syria is zero. I demonstrated, conclusively, that you were wrong. I can read what you wrote, Hazir. You don't actually have a reality-distortion field that works on other people. You were shown up, but, like a petulant child, you continue to insist you were right after all, even with clear, undeniable evidence of your mistake being available for everyone to examine with just a few page scrolls and clicks. I understand if you've grown accustomed to having this conversation with yourself or with others who are too uninformed or too weary to challenge your misconceptions about readily verifiable facts, but this is not a ritual or some form of performance art I'm passively participating in for your emotional benefit. If you cannot have a fact-based discussion, then just say so. Meanwhile, people more interested in justice than in tiresome melodrama will continue to do their best to systematically gather evidence that may help punish more of these criminals.

[Hazir]

You paraded up two cases of four years ago. Ignoring the position of the Swedish government on the matter. Which is the exact opposite of what you say here. You need to have your head shrunk a bit if you think you two useful idiots are the template for the problem you are going to have to deal with; if you think to know better than the legal advisors of your own government. You can disagree with me on the solution for the problem, but you can not make it go away by sticking your head in the sand.

[Aimless]

You paraded up two cases of four years ago. Ignoring the position of the Swedish government on the matter. Which is the exact opposite of what you say here. You need to have your head shrunk a bit if you think you two useful idiots are the template for the problem you are going to have to deal with; if you think to know better than the legal advisors of your own government. You can disagree with me on the solution for the problem, but you can not make it go away by sticking your head in the sand.

I'm sorry, but you clearly do not know what you're talking about. I mentioned three convictions off the top of my head. I also mentioned that the commission that ultimately got these men convicted is investigating dozens of other such cases. I also mentioned that the same commission has successfully convicted other people who have committed other atrocities in other regions. The majority of those who have returned from Syria etc. have done so fairly recently. Investigating and prosecuting atrocities committed in other countries has always taken a long time--typically years, except in cases such as these where there is incontrovertible evidence--but those difficulties can be mitigated somewhat by setting up procedures to enable gathering of evidence including witness testimonies on-site, which is the advice the govt has been given, by those who actually investigate and prosecute these criminals. You've latched on to some out-of-context remark you've read somewhere, thinking it gives you some sort of special insight into the Swedish govt's thinking or into the legal advice you imagine it has received. Now, you can disagree with things like the rule of law, but you cannot magically make your lies turn into truths by vaguely waving your hands around in the air. The reality is this: many criminals get away although they remain under surveillance, but some criminals do get caught, do get prosecuted, and do get punished. Some is infinitely more than none. Let this be a lesson to you not to make absolute, categorical statements without sufficient information. Or continue playing this new version of Brexit-ball if you wish, but it's not going to make you more right no matter how vigorously you move the goal-posts around.

[Hazir]

Of the top of your head. Yeah right.

[Aimless]

Of the top of your head. Yeah right.

I'm sorry, did you want me to expose any more of your lies and misconceptions or are you done owning yourself for tonight?

[GGT]

I'm not so much against protecting from unwarranted use of state power. But those protections are slowly turning into an excuse for not acting at all against the guilty. My opponents accuse me of extremism, which I accept. What I don't accept though is their sanctimonious claims of being on the side of justice. What they adhere to is dead legalism that barely has a shred of justice left in it.

Thanks for replying. Your statements about revoking citizenship and undoing post WWII human rights sound extreme. If your goal is that terrorists should be held accountable (in a court of law) if/when they return home....then how would that be accomplished by stripping citizenship or reducing human rights?

And I'm not sure what you mean by protections turning into excuses for doing nothing, or dead legalism. The whole world (western democracies at least) has been trying to balance principles for a long time. On hyper-drive after 9/11. The new ISIS 'recruits' that travel to commit their crimes, and come back home afterward make it that much harder.

I share your view that "justice" is often elusive or downright absent. It's frustrating, maddening! But I don't agree with your premise that extremism will solve extremism. Gitmo comes to mind.

[Hazir]

Thanks for replying. Your statements about revoking citizenship and undoing post WWII human rights sound extreme. If your goal is that terrorists should be held accountable (in a court of law) if/when they return home....then how would that be accomplished by stripping citizenship or reducing human rights?

And I'm not sure what you mean by protections turning into excuses for doing nothing, or dead legalism. The whole world (western democracies at least) has been trying to balance principles for a long time. On hyper-drive after 9/11. The new ISIS 'recruits' that travel to commit their crimes, and come back home afterward make it that much harder.

I share your view that "justice" is often elusive or downright absent. It's frustrating, maddening! But I don't agree with your premise that extremism will solve extremism. Gitmo comes to mind.

If a system isn't delivering and incapable of reform its continued existence has no added value. Aimless and people like him are fooling themselves into believing that the system still delivers.

And yet we have Guantanamo.

[Aimless]

Interesting and important ruling:

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See full thread for more detailed commentary.