A BRITISH jihadi couple who tried to sneak back into the UK after two years in Syria have been jailed in Turkey.

Muslim convert Stefan Aristidou, 24, and his wife Kolsoma Begum, 23, were convicted of being in an armed terrorist organisation – the so-called Islamic State.

Both were sentenced to six years and three months each.

One MP said the case was "the tip of the iceberg".

Out of 400 British jihadis who fought in Syria and Iraq, only 40 have been prosecuted on their return, it has emerged.

The remainder are believed to have gone free as there was not enough evidence to jail them.

It is unclear which sanctions the couple, who gave birth to a girl in Syria, will face on their return.

They are unlikely to lose their passports unless they are dual nationals.

The Londoners had been trying to return to the UK since September 2016 after defecting from IS.

They fled Syria last April but were arrested after surrendering to the Turks.

The couple claimed they joined IS in April 2015 so they could live under sharia law rather than to fight, but went into hiding after seeing the terror group’s murderous regime with their own eyes.

But last month a court in the Turkish town of Kilis, three miles from the Syrian border, rejected their defence.

They were jailed alongside US citizen Kary Paul Kleman, 48, from Wisconsin, who claimed he had been captured by IS militants while visiting his Syrian wife’s family in 2015.

Aristidou, who grew up in middle-class surroundings in Enfield, north London, and Begum, who was training to be a midwife, became desperate to return to the UK after discovering that living under IS was like being in “prison”.

In March 2017, while on the run from the terror group, Aristidou told Sky News: “I’m just trying to get my life back.”

“So be it if I have to go to prison in order to do that. I’m prepared to do that. I’m just here to look after my family.”

After their arrest, Begum’s father Ahmed Ali, 48, told the Mail that his daughter should face justice if she wants to return to Britain.

Home Secretary Sajid Javid plans to make it illegal to travel to terror hotspots without good reason to deter Britons from joining extremist groups.

Independent MP John Woodcock, a member of the Commons home affairs committee, said last night: “It’s clear that this couple are actually only the tip of the iceberg.

“If this can get through, we’ll be able to prosecute people simply entering particular terror hotspots when they don’t have a clear reason to do so.”

The Government has also come under pressure from the US and Kurdish leaders in Syria to take responsibility for UK citizens captured abroad.

Many foreign fighters are deserting the terror group since it started to crumble two years ago.