Dutch police have arrested a former soldier suspected of killing Islamic State (Isis) jihadists while fighting alongside Kurdish forces in Syria last year, the prosecutor’s office said.
The 47-year-old man, who was not identified, was arrested on Wednesday in the eastern Dutch city of Arnhem and appeared in a Rotterdam court on Friday, where he was provisionally released.
“The man is a former soldier whose case was extensively reported on last year in the media and on Facebook due to his involvement in the fight against the Islamic State,” a statement said.
“Dutch law – apart from in exceptional circumstances like self-defence – does not give citizens the right to use force and particularly not deadly force.
“Killing an [Isis] fighter therefore could mean being prosecuted for murder,” the statement said.
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Dutch media reports named him as Jitse Akse, who left for Syria in early 2015.
“When you see what they’ve done ... by killing a member of [Isis] I have probably saved dozens of lives,” he told a local newspaper from his northern Dutch village.
Visit the Justice for Jitse Facebook page.
