Mohammed Noor Masri: should he come home?
In early 2015, Mohammed Noor Masri travelled from Sydney to Syria to join the Islamic State.
He says he was ignorant of IS's genocide, slavery and beheadings even though, months earlier, an Australian child who was the son of another Islamic State member, Khaled Sharrouf, was pictured on front pages holding the severed head of a Syrian soldier.
Masri claims he just wanted to join a society where one could follow a pure form for Islam.
He also claims that, once in Syria, he did no fighting and saw few atrocities. He kept his head down and used his skills as a tradesman to work in the hospital in the IS capital, Raqqa, he says.
This lasted right up until he emerged from hiding and left Baghouz, IS's final stronghold, with his pregnant wife and three small sons a week or so ago.
Can we believe him? Should the Australian government return him and his family to a country he describes as "Normal living. Civilised people. Clean streets. People who use their brain. And again, home"?
On Please Explain special update episode this week, foreign and investigations editor Michael Bachelard speaks with defence and security correspondent David Wroe, who interviewed Mr Masri in Syria with photographer Kate Geraghty.
While you're there, check out other great podcasts from The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age: and the
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