WORLD powers must do more to ensure foreign fighters who travel to join the so-called Islamic State terror group in Syria and Iraq are brought to justice, Theresa May has said.
Leading a session on counter-terrorism at the G7 summit in Taormina, Sicily, the Prime Minister said they needed to be prepared to share their expertise with the countries the fighters travel to and fight in.
A senior UK Government source said she made the point that it was important to ensure those countries had the legal means to prosecute, deport or extradite suspects as appropriate.
The PM warned that as the fighters returned to their home countries they posed a new terrorist threat.
She called on the G7 members to provide legal and policing support to countries such as Iraq, to help them prosecute any foreign fighters they capture.
Mrs May said: "It is vital we do more to co-operate with our partners in the region to step up returns and prosecutions of foreign fighters.
"This means improving intelligence-sharing, evidence gathering and bolstering countries' police and legal processes."
The PM stressed that G7 members needed to be able to share data securely on foreign fighters so they could be tracked as they crossed borders and decisions made on whether or not they should be arrested.
This would include sharing the identities of foreign fighters who might try to pass through third countries on the way back home.
When evidence was found of illegal activity involving British fighters, she said it should be passed on to the relevant UK authorities so they could be prosecuted on their return.
The case of London-born jihadi Aine Davis, who was jailed in Turkey, is an example of the co-operation Mrs May wants to see.
Davis was suspected of having been part of a four-strong Islamist terror cell dubbed The Beatles along with Mohammed Emwazi, the killer nicknamed Jihadi John.
Davis was convicted of being a member of a terrorist organisation and jailed for seven and a half years earlier this month.
The trial heard how he had been tracked by Turkish police and intelligence officials days after being smuggled out of Syria by Daesh.
Officials made clear fighters captured in Syria would not be be prosecuted there and the aim would be to charge them in neighbouring countries such as Russia.
Meantime, Mrs May chaired the counter-terrorism session at the G7 summit and urged the world's leading industrial nations to come together to pressure tech companies to remove "harmful" extremist content from web.
The G7 leaders issued a joint call to internet companies to "substantially increase" their efforts to remove online terrorist content, including by developing technology capable of automatically spotting posts which incite violence.
They said in the wake of Monday's suicide bomb in Manchester that it was time for the world to "redouble our efforts" to take action against terrorism.
They made clear they were "united in expressing our deepest sympathy and condolences to the families of the victims of the brutal terrorist act in Manchester", adding: " We condemn in the strongest possible terms terrorism in all its forms and manifestations."
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