Danish government admits paying welfare benefits to ISIS fighters in Syria

The Danish government has admitted that some of its citizens who went to Syria to fight for the Islamic State has been receiving sickness and disability benefits.

The Danish Security and Intelligence Services revealed that since 2012, there have been about 145 Danes who traveled to Syria or Iraq to fight for militant groups.

Officials revealed this week that they have identified several Danish citizens who went to Syria to join ISIS, while receiving government disability pensions, The New York Times reported.

"It is a huge scandal that we are paying out money from the welfare funds in Denmark to people who are going to Syria and elsewhere in the world to undermine democracy that we have been fighting for for hundreds of years," said Danish Employment Minister Troels Lund Poulsen.

It was reported last year that over two dozen Danish citizens who were receiving unemployment benefits fought for ISIS in Syria, even though recipients are required to live in Denmark.

The jihadis are exploiting a loophole that would qualify them to receive an early pension by claiming to be too sick or disabled to work, according to CNS News.

Payments Denmark Deputy Director Carsten Bodal said that his department has no way of stopping the payments.

"The legislation does not give Payments Denmark the ability to stop payment of a pension simply because PET provides information that the recipient is participating in the fighting in Syria," said Bodal.

"The rules allow you to stop paying, for example, if the recipient is on the run from detention, or if they violate the general rule for international travel for retirees," he added.

Senior labor ministry officials announced on Tuesday that the government was planning to pass a measure that would remove loopholes and prevent what they said were an egregious misuse of public funds.

Bent Nielsen, an official who oversees the distribution of welfare benefits, said that the proposal would immediately stop welfare payments to any citizen deemed as a national security risk after traveling abroad to fight for ISIS. Authorities could also demand the reimbursement of benefits that were already paid if the citizen was found to be in violation of the law.

Since last year, municipal and state authorities have been attempting to collect about $95,000 in welfare benefits wrongly paid to 29 citizens who fought for ISIS in Syria, officials said.