Australian IS nurse faces prosecution on return to Sydney

Two boys from another school were stopped at Sydney airport in March as they tried to leave for Syria without their parents’ knowledge.

Brookman could be charged under terrorism legislation that bans Australians from travelling to “declared areas” or aiding terrorism.

Brookman was voluntarily returning to Australia with a police escort on a flight from Turkey where he had surrendered to authorities, Australian Federal Police said in a statement.

In a statement an AFP spokesman said Brookman is yet to be charged.

It says he is facing several investigations.

“If there is evidence an Australian has committed a criminal offence under Australia law while involved in the conflict in Syria and Iraq, they will be charged and put before the courts”, ABC News quoted an AFP spokesperson as saying.

The AFP told The Herald Sun Brookman’s voluntary return to Australia today was being carefully managed.

“The public can rest assured that any Australian who is identified as a threat to security will be investigated by the relevant agencies, ” the spokesman said. “Syria in particular and nobody should be under any misapprehension that if they are involved in the conflict on either side, they have the potential to be committing crimes against Australian law”.

Brookman was expected to be taken to the AFP’s Sydney headquarters after he arrived.

“I hope anyone who is returned from those conflict zones will share their experience because their experience as a foreign fighter will have been essentially to be used as cannon fodder in the most violent and brutal terror organisation that we have virtually ever seen”, Mr Keenan said after an address to the Lowy Institute.

He said he had never taken up arms with or joined Isis, and had only worked in clinics and hospitals in the war-torn country.

The minister said the government could not silence returned fighters if their message was less critical of IS.

Last month, Prime Minister Tony Abbott introduced a controversial law under which Australian dual nationals suspected of involvement in “terrorism” can be stripped of citizenship. Under Australia’s anti-terror laws, anyone caught in a declared area must prove they were not fighting with IS.

As said by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, 23-year-old Reece Harding travelled to the Middle East in May to fight against IS militants and was killed after he stepped on a land mine.

Adam Brookman, the Melbourne nurse who claims he was forced to join ISIS, has surrendered himself in Turkey.