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Syria arms silence ‘derailed terror trial’

THE government’s refusal to come clean on whether it sent arms to Syrian rebels contributed to the collapse of a terrorism case against a Swedish man, his lawyer said yesterday.

Bherlin Gildo, 37, was on his way to visit his wife in the Philippines in October last year when he was arrested in transit at Heathrow airport and accused of attending a terrorist training camp in Syria between August 2012 and March 2013.

But the case against him threw up “contradictions” regarding arms transfers to anti-government forces in Syria and, following a Crown Prosecution Service review, the government declined

to elaborate on its alleged role.

In a brief hearing at the Old Bailey, prosecutor Riel Karmy-Jones offered no evidence against Mr Gildo.

His solicitor Gareth Peirce said her client had been in Syria only to help its war-stricken people and pointed out that fighting there was not an offence under Swedish law.

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