UK Mercenaries Fighting Daesh Should Not Be Punished – Ex-Special Forces Officer

EDINBURGH (Sputnik) – The UK Home Office has warned that British citizens known to have been fighting in Syria or Iraq, regardless of whether they were with forces opposed to Daesh, face arrest and possible prosecution on their return home.

"Regarding soldiers fighting against IS [Daesh], I support them. They should certainly not be prosecuted on return to the UK. I have always understood that it is a UN Declared Right of Man that one can fight for what one believes in. Men like George Orwell who fought in the Spanish Civil War — against fascism — are rightly seen as heroic. Are we now saying that a modern George Orwell should be arrested?" Mann said.

Mann, who after leaving the British Army became a mercenary and was later sentenced to 34 years in jail for his role in the failed 2004 military coup d'etat in Equatorial Guinea, before he secured a presidential pardon and release in 2009, told Sputnik a distinction had to be made by UK authorities between those joining Daesh from the United Kingdom and those going to the region to fight against them.

"Terrorists who fight for IS should be prosecuted to the maximum possible degree. They openly espouse our downfall. They clearly state terror as their means. If we lack the moral compass to spot the difference between these two types of Britain fighting overseas — and act upon it — then we will deserve what comes as a result," Mann said.

Last month, UK Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said around 850 UK citizens had travelled to Syria since the conflict began, with around half of those having subsequently returned. An estimated 15 percent of those, 127 people, had been killed during the fighting.