LINDA MOTTRAM: The Federal Government has made much of its laws which enable the minister to place bans on the return of foreign fighters to Australia.
So, how and why was Agim Ajazi brought back?
Few details are available, so I asked terrorism scholar Dr Lydia Khalil from the Lowy Institute if Turkey could have put him on a plane without prior agreement from Australian authorities.
LYDIA KHALIL: It would be highly unlikely for Turkey not to have coordinated the return of this individual with the Australian Government. There are pretty decent links between the Australian and Turkish governments and intelligence sharing on this matter, particularly foreign fighters.
It would have been an unusual thing to do, not to have prior coordination between two governments, particularly with the issue of foreign fighters given how fraught and politicised this issue is.
LINDA MOTTRAM: Well, indeed on social media I think there is already some pushback. What's the logic of allowing an alleged member of a terror organisation back into Australia?
LYDIA KHALIL: Well, it is very simple. I mean, this individual is an Australian citizen, so they actually do not belong in Turkey or a different country.
Each of these countries, Australia included, has to take responsibility for their own citizens. Within Australian law this person is required to be tried and potentially prosecuted for crimes that are committed.
Right now, we have been pretending like this is not our issue, that it is not the Australian Government’s responsibility when in fact it is, and we have been pushing it on to either the camps run by the Kurds or to Turkey, where these people are transiting from.
So in fact, because this individual is an Australian citizen, it is therefore the obligation of the Australian Government to see that this person is tried and brought to justice.
LINDA MOTTRAM: But the Australian Government did pass the laws with the potential for the minister to ban foreign fighters from coming back to Australia. So how do they work and how do we measure what they are actually doing, what their effectiveness is?
LYDIA KHALIL: Well, there has been a lot of pushback from the Kurdish and from Turkey in particular and from a lot of the countries within the Middle East region who are bearing the burden of this cohort of foreign fighters, and pressure also too from the United States and the Trump administration for countries around the world to take responsibility for their own citizens, and so there is that dynamic at play.
This pressure has been building up for quite a long time in countries like the UK and Australia and others have been very resistant.
We've been playing this game of kind of hot potato with some of these individuals.
LINDA MOTTRAM: Do you expect that this is the beginning of something that will be repeated? I mean, has Turkey likely got other Australians that it would want to send back?
LYDIA KHALIL: I do. I think this has been a long time coming. We've seen many years now since the caliphate has started to slowly wither away and then eventually collapse.
This issue was going to come to a head sooner rather than later, and counterterrorism analysts like myself have been, you know, sounding the alarm about this issue and saying that states really start to need to be preparing for the potential of return and prosecution of these individuals.
So not only should we think about doing it in a more orderly way where it will allow us to be better prepared and to deal with the prosecution and then incarceration and potentially rehabilitation of these individuals down the track, but also we need to be mindful in terms of better intelligence-sharing about where potentially foreign fighters may go that is not their country of origin.
So, for example, they could potentially escape or travel to third countries if this isn't done in a more comprehensive, orderly fashion.
This issue now, particularly in the aftermath of the collapse of the Islamic State territorially, is going to be one that we are going to be dealing with into the future, so I don't think this will be the first case or the last case.
LINDA MOTTRAM: Lydia Khalil, thank you very much for speaking with PM today.
LYDIA KHALIL: My pleasure. Thank you.
LINDA MOTTRAM: Lydia Khalil is a terrorism expert from the Lowy Institute.
