Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn said that former ISIS leader Abu Bakr al Baghdadi should have been arrested and subsequently faced a trial instead of being killed during a top secret operation in northwest Syria last month.
Last month, Baghdadi detonated a suicide vest, killing himself and two of his children in a cave as U.S. Delta Force operators were closing in on him. LBC, a London-based radio news outlet, caught up with Corbyn this week and asked him his thoughts on Baghdadi’s death.
“If we preach international law and international legal process through the International Court of Justice in the Hague, then we should carry it out, and if it’s possible to arrest somebody to put them on trial, then that is what should be done,” Corbyn stated. “If we believe, as we do, in international law and justice and power of the International Court of Justice, then we should do everything we can to bring people where they deserve to go on trial, to be put on trial.”
He continued, “Him being removed from the scene is a very good thing. If it would have been possible to arrest him — I don’t know the details of the circumstances at the time; I’ve only seen various statements put out by the U.S. about it — surely that would’ve been the right thing to do. If we want to live in a world of peace and justice, we should practice it as well.”
Corbyn’s remarks are consistent with comments he made about Osama bin Laden’s death in 2011. Following bin Laden’s death, Corbyn complained that there was “no attempt whatsoever that I can see to arrest him and put him on trial, to go through that process,” and he called it “an assassination attempt.”
In a press conference following the successful Baghdadi raid, President Trump described the terrorist leader’s final moments as “whimpering and crying and screaming all the way.”
