Foreign Fighters and the Death Penalty

Desmond Swayne Excerpts

Thursday 11th October 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Wallace]

I am old enough to remember “Jackanory” and I think that I have just heard a “Jackanory” narrative from the hon. Gentleman. Let me deal with his questions. He asserted that, in every case previously, we have always sought assurances. That has not been the case. I apologise for not getting back to him in time for his summer reading. We did have to go back into the previous Labour Government to find a number of cases; I am talking about a Government in which the hon. Gentleman was a Minister in the very Department where this was taking place. We discovered that one of the cases took place in a Labour Government after 2001.

Secondly, the details of mutual legal assistance arrangements, as the hon. Gentleman will know, are subject to strict confidentiality, because they are often about individuals involved in an investigation. However, I can help him in his “Jackanory” story: the 2014 Thailand example that he has cited is not a case where this has happened; it has not been brought to my attention. Perhaps he has raised another case, but, certainly, the two of which I am aware do not relate to that case.

Furthermore, when the hon. Gentleman comes to talk about the policy of successor Governments, he should know that, in 2011, this Government brought forward, for the first time, through the OSJA, written guidance. It was very clear in paragraph 9 that, on some occasions, there were strong reasons for not seeking assurances in such cases. The policy before 2011, including the time when the hon. Gentleman was a member of the Government, was that a Government could exchange evidence without seeking assurances on the death penalty in “exceptional circumstances”—[Interruption.] I think that the hon. Gentleman knows that his Government did do it. Certainly, he was a member of the Government when one of these cases took place.

The reality is that the two individuals in question, who are suspects and innocent until proven guilty, are charged, or effectively viewed, as having been part of very, very dangerous and heinous crimes, including torture and beheading, against many, many people, and that they are held in a place of detention, effectively in a war zone in north Syria, by non-state actors. That means that the choices are stark for any Government charged with keeping people safe and trying to deliver justice for the victims.

We are guided by the overseas security and justice assistance. The Home Secretary and the Foreign Secretary considered this guidance strongly, found that there were strong reasons and took the necessary decision that in this case we would share with the United States evidence on the condition that Guantanamo was not part of the process, but in this case we did not seek death penalty assurances.

[Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)]

Some of us, and most of our constituents, are a lot less squeamish about this than the Minister and the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant). Indeed, they take the view that these people had it coming, didn’t they?

[Mr Wallace]

What these individuals who are suspected of an offence and many others have coming is justice. We will do everything we can to work with our allies to see that justice is administered in a way that follows due process and that takes place in a court of law, where there is a separation between the judiciary and the Executive, where people have a right to defence and to make an argument, and where the rule of law prevails. That is what they and anybody else who involves themselves in that type of terrorism has coming to them, and that is what we are trying to uphold.