A British Teenager who fled to Syria to fight for ISIS now wants to return and face justice with the caliphate collapsing.
Shabazz Suleman, 21, disappeared while on a family holiday to Turkey three years ago and had been in Raqqa, the de facto capital of Islamic State, until its recent fall.
But now he wants to come home and be punished for joining the terror group having become a ‘disillusioned jihadi’.
It came days after a minister suggested the only way of dealing with British fighters who have gone to Syria or Iraq will be to kill them in almost every case.
Rory Stewart, an international development minister, said UK citizens who had travelled to the war-torn country were a ‘serious danger’ to Britain.
Suleman, a former grammar school pupil from High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, told The Times that he had become disillusioned with jihadism and chose to desert the terrorist group.
Via encrypted messages he told the newspaper he went through ‘intense’ indoctrination by the group, adding: ‘I never thought I was being brainwashed until I saw the way they treat other Sunnis.’
He also revealed jihadis are killing deserters.
Suleman, who is thought to have left ISIS-controlled territory and be in the hands of a Turkish militia, reportedly admits undergoing weapons training and carrying out guard duties, but denies taking part in killings.
His father, Afzal Suleman, 46, said he knew ‘for a fact’ that his son had become a civilian and had not been on the battlefield for two years.
‘(He) never killed anyone or anything,’ Mr Suleman told the newspaper.
‘At the end of the day if he has committed a crime he should go to court. We just want him home.’
The 21-year-old teenager, who was described by his old school as ‘a valued, hardworking student’, had achieved good A-level results last summer and had a place lined up to study at Keele University, where he had wanted to study International Relations.
Former pupils at his old school include Secretary of State for Justice Chris Grayling, comedian Jimmy Carr, England rugby players Nick Beale, Matt Dawson, and Tom Rees, golfer Luke Donald and singer Ian Dury.
Suleman, who had travelled to Aleppo, Syria with an aid convoy in 2013, is believed to have been radicalised by jihadis he met on Twitter.
He is also thought to have attended the Muslim Education Centre in High Wycombe, where one of the British men convicted in the 2006 transatlantic liquid bomb plot also attended. It is around the corner from the £400,000 detached family home he grew up in.
His parents had reported him missing to both British police and the Turkish authorities, and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office had also reported him missing.
Suleman, who received weapons training at a two-week Sharia training camp, said he had been caught by security services at the Syrian border. He said he was visited twice by Turkish intelligence agency MIT, fined, and told he was going to be deported.
