Yahoo News British man who travelled to fight Isis in Syria denies terror offences
A British man fuelled violence and devastation in Syria by travelling to fight against Islamic State, a court has heard.
Aidan James, 28, from Formby, Merseyside, had no previous military knowledge when he allegedly set out to join the bloody war in 2017 for the Kurdish people.
He prepared himself to join their cause in an “amateurish way” and underwent training with weapons in Iraq for a month, the Old Bailey was told.
From there, he went to the Syrian border with Iraq for another month of training, jurors were told.
Prosecutor Mark Heywood QC told jurors that the violence in Syria had been fuelled by the involvement of individuals on all sides who had no prior link or association with the land or its people.
And by 2017, the conflict had already raged for five years, leading to “death, displacement and damage”.
Mr Heywood said: “The prosecution case against this defendant is that as a citizen and resident of this country who did not know and had never been to Iraq or Syria before and who had no prior military knowledge or experience whatever and no official sanction at all, he went there for four months to fight. He picked one particular cause and he joined in.
“At the time and since, he claimed that his aim was to combat Islamic State.
“In reality, it was not just that – there was much more to it.
“He had picked his cause and it was the cause of just one of the many groups of people that inhabit that part of the world and would like it to be their own – the Kurdish people.
“The prosecution case against him is that he went as an individual to Syria to fight with guns and explosives.”
Mr Heywood said: “Mr James is not charged with any offence that his purpose was simply to go to fight Isis – rather the charges are levelled against him because his intention was to lend support to advance a political or ideological cause.”
The court heard that Parliament has the power to proscribe groups anywhere in the world linked to terrorism, banning UK citizens from joining or funding them.
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Two of the groups James associated with – the People’s Protection Unit known as the YPG and its female wing, the YPJ – are not proscribed by Parliament.
But a third, the PKK or the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, has been banned since 2001 for its advocation of Kurdish self-rule through both political and armed struggle.
James has pleaded not guilty to engaging in conduct in preparation of terrorist acts and two charges of attending a place used for terrorist training.
