A former London currency trader who spent five months in Syria last year fighting against Islamic State has returned to the frontline alongside a number of Britons that he says the UK government is often unaware of.
The one-time Conservative party councillor – who emerged in 2015 as part of the small but significant group of foreigners fighting alongside the Kurds – told the Guardian he understood that what he was doing was “very controversial” but insisted that it was not illegal.
His return to northern Syria a few weeks ago came after a London teenager became the first British citizen to be convicted for trying to join the campaign against Isis in Syria.
The former City trader, who has joined the left-wing Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG), defended what he was doing, despite the fact that he believed the British government viewed him as a “thorn in its side”.
“I have been very open and honest from the very beginning about what I was doing,” said the man, who uses the nom de guerre Macer Gifford and is also known as Harry.
“British law is very confused. If you go and fight against a foreign state, you could be breaking British law. Obviously you could also be tried for criminal acts if you commit any atrocities. But at the end of the day, what I did was that I joined a People’s Protection Unit … and I fought against international terrorists, theIslamic State.
“The British government saw me as perhaps a thorn in their side, but a loophole had been found – and at the end of the day it’s up to the prosecution service. Is it in the interests of the British people to prosecute this person? They must have convinced themselves that there was no way that they could do that.”
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