Boris Johnson has hit back at criticism for letting two British jihadis face the death penalty in America.
He insisted that if the Government had been able to order their deaths with a drone strike in Syria, ‘too damn right we would’.
Alexanda Kotey and Shafee Elsheikh are linked to the murder of 27 Western hostages.
They are members of the IS terror gang of four men from west London dubbed The Beatles – which included the notorious executioner Jihadi John. Kotey and Elsheikh, who have been stripped of British citizenship, now face extradition from Syria to the US on terrorism charges.
Alexanda Kotey from Paddington, London, was captured by the Syrian Democratic Forces and is facing the death penalty in the US
Kotey has denied being a member of ‘the Beatles’ but admits being a member of terror group ISIS
Controversy arose earlier this week when a leaked Home Office document revealed that the Government has dropped its usual requirement for assurances they would not be executed if convicted by a US court.
But last night Mr Johnson said there was ‘a bit of humbug’ in the outrage over the ‘correct decision to send them for trial in America’, and that if Kotey and Elsheikh had been spotted during their murderous rampage in Syria there would have been no hesitation in ordering their deaths with a missile strike.
In an article for the Spectator magazine, Mr Johnson wrote: ‘Suppose the grisly pair had been located a couple of years ago in Raqqa.
‘And let’s suppose there was a Reaper drone overhead, and that British intelligence could help send a missile neatly through their windscreen.
Boris Johnson has said he would have ordered the killings of jihadis in Syria if he could have done
‘Would we provide the details – knowing that they would be killed without a chance for their lawyers to offer pleas in mitigation on account of their tough childhoods in west London? Would the British state, in these circumstances, have connived in straightforward extrajudicial killing? Too damn right we would.’
Government lawyers have claimed drone strikes against known jihadis were to prevent future acts of terrorism when they returned to their homes in the West.
But the former foreign secretary said this justification ‘scarcely masks the reality that killing them is also retributive – payback for the filmed executions of innocent people’. Jihadi John, whose real name was Mohammed Emwazi, was killed in a drone strike three years ago after beheading British aid workers David Haines and Alan Henning on camera.
El Shafee Elsheikh, a British citizen whose family fled Sudan in the 1990s, joined the ranks of ISIS and was named as a member of ‘The Beatles’ given their name because of their accents
At the time, the then prime minister David Cameron said: ‘He posed an ongoing and serious threat. This was an act of self-defence. It was the right thing to do.’
Mr Johnson added: ‘It was just such a drone strike that vaporised that other ‘Beatle’, Jihadi John, and I don’t remember hot tears being wept for him.’
The fourth member, Aine Davis, was sentenced to seven and a half years in jail after being convicted of terrorism charges in Turkey last year.
Mr Johnson said the four Beatles were responsible for killing at least 27 people, adding: ‘So why do we support these extrajudicial killings, with no due process, and panic at what might happen in an American court?
Mother Maha Elgizouli said her two sons Shafee (right) and his younger brother Mahmoud went to fight for ISIS. She was told last March last year that Mahmoud (left) was killed in Iraq
‘The best hope of bringing Kotey and Elsheikh to justice is in America, and in sending them there the UK Government has not dropped its opposition to the death penalty.
‘We had to balance two risks: the risk they would be simply set loose, like so many other jihadis, to roam the streets of London again, or the small risk they might receive the death penalty.
‘[Home Secretary] Sajid Javid and I decided that the first risk was worse than the second. Who really believes we were wrong?’