Britain has used drone strikes as “payback” for jihadist atrocities in possible contravention of international law, Boris Johnson suggested yesterday.
Defending the government’s support for the prosecution in America of two Islamic State terrorists from Britain, who could face the death penalty, he said that ministers would have had no compunction in ordering their deaths in Syria.
The former foreign secretary said that when decisions were taken to use drone strikes, ministers considered what the targets had done in the past as well as the threat they posed.
Britain has always insisted that drone strikes are legal under the “inherent right of self-defence” in the Charter of the United Nations but that has been challenged by human rights groups.
Writing in The Spectator,
