MOSCOW (Sputnik) — The Dutch Minister of Security and Justice Stef Blok has revoked the citizenship of four men convicted of participating in terrorist activities in Syria, local media reported Wednesday.
It is the first time the minister used the legislation to deprive people convicted or suspected of involvement in terrorist activities or being a danger to national security of their citizenship, the Dutchnews.nl portal reported.
The four men – Anis Z, Driss D, Hatim R and Noureddin B — were all sentenced to jail in absentia. The trial was part of the public prosecution service’s Operation Context in which a number of alleged Dutch jihadists are being prosecuted. The operation was launched in 2013, when parents reported that their children had gone to Syria to join terrorist groups after being recruited by radicals in the Netherlands.
Three of them are considered to still be in Syria, while the fourth, Driss D, who was sentenced to a six-year jail term last year, is thought to have died several years ago.
Citizenship is a legal relationship between an individual person and a state, which affords the state jurisdiction over the person and affords the person the protection of the state. International conventions provide each state the right to determine who its nationals are.
