Three British teenagers who were stopped in Turkey on their way to Syria are back in the UK and are being held at a central London police station, Scotland Yard says.
The three, who have not been named but are aged between 17 and 19, were seized on Friday in Turkey. Scotland Yard said that the teenagers subsequently returned to the UK on Saturday and have been detained on suspicion of terrorism offences.
A police spokesman said in a statement: “On Friday 13 March officers from SO15 Counter Terrorism Command were made aware that two 17-year-old boys from north-west London had gone missing and were believed to be travelling to Syria.
“Enquiries revealed that they had travelled with a third male, aged 19 years.
“Officers alerted the Turkish authorities who were able to intercept all three males, preventing travel to Syria.
“On Saturday, 14 March the three males returned to the UK and at approx 23:10hrs were arrested on suspicion of preparation of terrorist acts contrary to Section 5 of the Terrorism Act 2006.
“All three have been taken to a central London police station, where they remain in custody.”
A spokeswoman from Turkey’s Office of Public Diplomacy told Channel 4 News that the suspects were detected arriving at Istanbul’s Sabiha Gokcen international airport on Friday evening, after UK police contacted the Turkish authorities earlier that day.
The suspects were reported to have arrived on a flight from Barcelona.
MP Keith Vaz, chair of the Home Affairs Select Committee, said the latest detention suggests the flow of young people intending to travel to Syria is “on a much larger scale than we envisaged”.
“I welcome the action that has been taken by the Turkish authorities,” he said.
“We need to prevent people going in the first place and that is why parents need to be vigilant but we also need cooperation from the Turkish authorities in order to stop them from going further.
“We need to be vigilant. Clearly this flight of young people to Turkey in order to go to Syria is on a much larger scale than we envisaged.”
Concerns about how Turkish authorities dealt with the disappearance of the three missing girls last month, raised by their families, proved how important it is to “act quickly”, he added.