Janes Solicitors acted for Isa Giga in a prosecution under the Terrorism Act for his travel to Syria in 2015 to fight with the Jaysh Al Fath group. Giga is a British citizen who in 2024 returned voluntarily to the UK via the embassy in Istanbul, upon which he was arrested and charged. At the time of his travel, Jaysh Al Fath were a proscribed terrorist organisation.
While there have been a number of reported ‘Syria travel’ prosecutions in recent years, this case was unique because Jaysh Al Fath was a precursor to Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), a group that became a major player in the Syrian civil war, fought against ISIS, and later led the offensive that overthrew the despotic Bashar al-Assad regime in December 2024. Subsequently, in October 2025, HTS was removed from the list of proscribed organisations by the UK Government. It now has diplomatic links with many jurisdictions, including our own, and the UK is actively engaged in working with it to bring into existence the inclusive democratic society in Syria that it has committed to.
Giga’s own words in an email sent to his family in 2015 were “I came to fight against Assad and against ISIS”.
However, terrorism legislation in the UK is politically neutral and a person who travels with the intention of joining a foreign military force engaged in a civil war – whether to remove a despot or not – commits an offence for which they are liable to punishment.
Giga was sentenced by the Recorder of London to a determinate sentence of 9 years, with one additional year on licence. This sentence is lighter and compares favourably to other Syria travel prosecutions, and reflects the Judge’s assessment of Giga’s motivations at the time. He was not found to be ‘dangerous’ for the purposes of the Sentencing Act because the Judge did not consider him to pose a significant risk to the public.
Alex Chapman represented Isa Giga, instructing Andrew Hall KC and Pippa Woodrow both of Doughty Street Chambers. He also instructed expert witnesses Dr Rim Turkmani, Director of the Syria Conflict Research Programme at LSE (who gave evidence at trial), and Rashad Ali, Senior Fellow at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue and expert on deradicalisation and counter terror initiatives.
Press: BBC, Daily Mail, Mirror