Turkey sends teenagers back to UK after Syria attempt
London, March (NsNewsWire) — Three teenagers who were stopped from travelling to Syria from Turkey have been flown back to the UK and arrested, Scotland Yard has said.
Two boys aged 17 from north-west London and a man aged 19 were returned to the UK on Saturday night, the Met said, reports BBC.
They were arrested on suspicion of preparing terrorist acts and have been released on bail.
They were reported as missing on Friday and were detained after UK police alerted Turkish officials, it added.
Scotland Yard said counter-terrorism officers had initially been made aware that the two 17-year-old boys had gone missing and were believed to be travelling to Syria.
Further enquiries revealed they had travelled with a third man, UK police added.
“Officers alerted the Turkish authorities who were able to intercept all three males, preventing travel to Syria,” a police spokesman added.
They were returned to the UK at about 23:10 GMT on Saturday and were arrested by counter-terrorism officers.
They have been bailed to return to a central London police station pending further enquiries.
‘SECURITY CO-OPERATION’
The trio had flown to Istanbul from Barcelona, in Spain, a Turkish official told the BBC.
The two 17 year olds were stopped at Istanbul’s Sabiha Gokcen airport by Turkish authorities acting on intelligence provided by British police about the pair.
However, the 19-year-old man was only detained after being questioning by Turkish police, the official said. He was also arrested at the airport.
“This is a good and a clear example of how the security cooperation between Western intelligence agencies and Turkey should work,” the official added.
BBC correspondent Andy Moore said the development came after “recriminations” between UK police and Turkish officials following the disappearance of three London schoolgirls.
Shamima Begum, Amira Abase, both 15, and Kadiza Sultana, 16 – all from London – took flights to Istanbul last month, from where it is feared they travelled to join Islamic State (IS) militants in Syria.
Their disappearance led to criticisms from Turkey’s deputy prime minister, who said officials in the country had not been given enough warning about their disappearance.
“On this occasion it seems that the warning was raised in the UK and that was communicated very quickly to Turkey,” our correspondent said.
The BBC’s Selin Girit, in Instanbul, said the deportation of the two 17-year-old boys and 19-year-old man shows that when Turkish police have information “they can co-operate”.
“When the three UK schoolgirls went missing Turkish officials said ‘it is not us to blame because we were not passed the information of these missing girls. How can we find and locate and deport them when we do not have the necessary information?’,” she said.
“But this shows when there is a co-operation between intelligence services, between police, Turkish police can act accordingly.”