When news started to filter through that Mr Cafferkey, from Achill, Co Mayo was missing in action while fighting in Ukraine, it was clear Mr O’Keeffe should be the one to break the news to his parents
“There are many similarities between the Irish and the Kurdish struggles. I have long admired the Kurdish people for standing up for themselves and I hope to help them do that,” Mr Cafferkey said in a 2017 interview, identifying himself by his nom de guerre Ciya Demhat.
Above all, Mr Cafferkey’s friends were determined his parents should not learn about their son’s death in the news, on social media or from a random official who never knew him .Mr O’Keeffe searched for the quickest way to get to Ireland and found that a flight through Heathrow was the best option. On the evening of April 22nd, he boarded a flight from Brussels.
It is not clear why Mr O’Keeffe was singled out. In the past, people who have fought with groups in the various Middle Eastern conflicts have been targeted for questioning by the Met under the Act. But he had fought with the YPG, which was explicitly backed by the US and UK. He had also fought and worked with the group’s specialised counterterrorism units which were directly trained by western forces.
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