Swedish national Bherlin Gildo’s lawyers argued British intelligence agencies were supporting the same Syrian opposition groups as he was
A Free
Syrian Army fighter fires his weapon during clashes in Aleppo. The Old
Bailey was told by the crown that there was no longer a reasonable
prospect of a prosecution. Photograph: Muzaffar Salman/Reuters
The prosecution of a Swedish national
accused of terrorist activities in Syria has collapsed at the Old Bailey
after it became clear Britain’s security and intelligence agencies
would have been deeply embarrassed had a trial gone ahead, the Guardian
can reveal.
His lawyers argued that British
intelligence agencies were supporting the same Syrian opposition groups
as he was, and were party to a secret operation providing weapons and
non-lethal help to the groups, including the Free Syrian Army.
Bherlin Gildo, 37, who was arrested last
October on his way from Copenhagen to Manila, was accused of attending a
terrorist training camp and receiving weapons training between 31
August 2012 and 1 March 2013 as well as possessing information likely to
be useful to a terrorist.
Riel Karmy-Jones, for the crown, told the
court on Monday that after reviewing the evidence it was decided there
was no longer a reasonable prospect of a prosecution. “Many matters were
raised we did not know at the outset,” she told the recorder of London,
Nicholas Hilliard QC, who lifted all reporting restrictions and entered
not guilty verdicts.
In earlier court hearings, Gildo’s
defence lawyers argued he was helping the same rebel groups the British
government was aiding before the emergence of the extreme Islamist
group, Isis. His trial would have been an “affront to justice”, his
lawyers said.
Henry Blaxland QC, the defence counsel,
said: “If it is the case that HM government was actively involved in
supporting armed resistance to the Assad regime at a time when the
defendant was present in Syria and himself participating in such
resistance it would be unconscionable to allow the prosecution to
continue.”
Blaxland told the court: “If government
agencies, of which the prosecution is a part, are themselves involved in
the use of force, in whatever way, it is our submission that would be
an affront to justice to allow the prosecution to continue.”
After Monday’s hearing, Gildo’s
solicitor, Gareth Peirce, said his case had exposed a number of
“contradictions” – not least that the matters on which he was charged
were not offences in Sweden, and that the UK government had expressed
support for the Syrian opposition.
“He has been detained in this country
although he did not ever intend to enter this country. For him it’s as
if he has been abducted by aliens from outer space,” she said.
“Given that there is a reasonable basis
for believing that the British were themselves involved in the supply of
arms, if that’s so, it would be an utter hypocrisy to prosecute someone
who has been involved in the armed resistance.”
Gildo’s defence lawyers quoted a number
of press articles referring to the supply of arms to Syrian rebels,
including one from the Guardian on 8 March 2013, on the west’s training
of Syrian rebels in Jordan. Articles on the New York Times from 24 March
and 21 June 2013, gave further details and an article in the London
Review of Books from 14 April 12014, implicated MI6 in a “rat line” for
the transfer of arms from Libya.
Gildo was was flying to Manila to join
his wife, a Filipina, when he was stopped under schedule 7 of the 2000
Terrorism Act, the same statute used to question David Miranda, partner
of the former Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald, in 2013.
The court heard that Gildo had sought the
help of the Swedish secret service, Sapo, when he wanted to return to
his home country.
It is not the first time a British
prosecution relating to allegations of Syrian terrorism has collapsed.
Last October Moazzem Begg was released after “new material” was said to
have emerged.
The attorney general was consulted about
Monday’s decision. Karmy-Jones told the court in pre-trial hearings that
Gildo had worked with Jabhat al-Nusra, a “proscribed group considered
to be al-Qaida in Syria”. He was photographed standing over dead bodies
with his finger pointing to the sky.
The Press Association contributed to this report
(theguardian/myartikel/ABNS)
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