Family of terrorist Khaled Sharrouf beg for return to Australia

The wife of notorious foreign fighter Khaled Sharrouf has been told to approach the Australian Federal Police if she and her children want to return to Australia.

The mother of Tara Nettleton has pleaded with Prime Minister Tony Abbott to allow her and the couple’s five children to come home, after the likely death of Sharrouf in Iraq.

“My daughter has made the mistake of a lifetime,” her mother Karen said in a statement.

“Mr Abbott, I beg you, please help bring my child and grandchildren home.”

Tara Nettleton is believed to be seeking to return from Syria with the couple’s children, including a daughter who was married to Mohamed Elomar and a son photographed last year holding a severed head.

Sharrouf and fellow fighter Elomar are believed to have been killed in a wave of coalition airstrikes in northern Iraq.

The government has refused to say whether authorities are in discussion with Nettleton or her relatives in Australia, but insisted the full force of the law would apply to anyone who has joined terrorist groups.

However Mr Abbott says he does feel for the couple’s children. “I suppose at one level, yes, but on the other hand, we have to appreciate the scale of the evil which has been practised here,” he told the Nine Network this morning.

Immigration Minister Peter Dutton says the family should make contact with the Australian Federal Police instead of conducting its discussion through the media.

Both he and Mr Abbott warned the law would apply to anyone supporting terrorists and that they would face “significant consequences” if they returned to Australia.

“These aren’t the first evil murderers to have had families,” Mr Abbott told the Seven Network.

“They would be dealt in the same way that families of criminals are dealt with.”

Mr Dutton described the case of the family as a “complicated mess” of Sharrouf and his wife’s making.

He feels some sympathy for the children but also understands concerns within the Australian community about them interacting with other kids back here.

Mr Abbott says the government has a high degree of confidence that Elomar is dead but is yet to confirm Sharrouf’s fate.

Karen Nettleton says her daughter is a parent alone in a foreign and vicious land looking after a widowed 14-year-old and four other young children.

“I accept that some will be critical of my daughter, who followed her heart and has paid an enormous price.”

source:theaustralian.com.au