A British dad was booted out of Turkey on arrival for a family holiday as he has the same name as a man held on terror charges who later had the case against him dropped.
Daniel Burke’s children were terrified as armed military police hauled the family into a room at Dalaman airport and questioned the dad-of-three about his “links to Syria”.
Daniel, 36, had flown in from Newcastle for a break in Fethiye with his partner, their 15-month-old baby girl and his daughter, 14, and son, nine, from a previous relationship.
Daniel, of Bishop Auckland, Co Durham, said: “They were hammering me about my links to Syria. They were asking when I was last in the country.
“They were wearing guns in holsters, and were very heavy handed. My partner and children were in the room, they were very upset – my eldest was in tears.”
Turkish authorities stamped “cancel” on his passport and he was forced to fly back to the UK. By the time he got back his daughter’s pal had found a story about the other Daniel Burke.
Also 36 but from Manchester, this Mr Burke had joined the Kurdish YPG militia to fight against Islamic State in Syria after the 2017 Manchester Arena bombing. Back in the UK two years later he was held for eight months on suspicion of “preparing acts of terrorism” but the case was dropped the following year.
Photocopy service supervisor Daniel said: “He was a freedom fighter in my view, not a terrorist.
“But he fought against Turkish forces in the end, that’s why my name was on their list. I don’t look anything like him and he’ll have a different date of birth. I don’t know how many Daniel Burkes there are but I don’t want this to happen to anyone else.”
He says he has had no apology from Jet2. Jet2 said: “We have no control over decisions made by Turkish immigration authorities. However, our teams did all they could to support and assist Mr Burke and his family. We have since reached out to Mr Burke directly to apologise and explain this.”
