The Muslim convert dubbed Jihadi Jack who fled the UK to join Islamic State has been stripped of his British citizenship, according to reports.
Jack Letts was 18 when he left his Oxfordshire home in 2014 and travelled to Syria to fight with the terror group. He was captured by the Kurdish YPG forces as he attempted to flee to Turkey in May 2017 and is now being held in jail in northern Syria.
In one of the last moves by Theresa May’s government, Jack is said to have had his British citizenship revoked. It is legally permissible because he has dual Canadian citizenship through his father, although the move is likely to provoke a diplomatic row with Canada.
A Home Office spokesman told the Mail on Sunday: ‘Decisions on depriving a dual national of citizenship are based on substantial advice from officials, lawyers and the intelligence agencies and all available information. ‘This power is one way we can counter the terrorist threat posed by some of the most dangerous individuals and keep our country safe.’
Jack, now 24, struggled with obsessive compulsive disorder and Tourette’s when he was at school. At the age of 16 he converted to Islam and eventually came into contact with radicalised men. He fled to fight for Isis, who had declared a caliphate in parts of Iraq and Syria.
In an interview with ITV earlier this year, Jack – who got married in Iraq – said he felt British and that he wanted to return to the UK. But he admitted he did not think that would be likely. ‘I’m not going to say I’m innocent. I’m not innocent. I deserve what comes to me. But I just want it to be… appropriate… not just haphazard, freestyle punishment in Syria,’ he said.
In June his parents John Letts, 58, who also has dual British and Canadian citizenship, and his mother, Sally Lane, 57, were convicted of one charge of funding terrorism in September 2015.
The pair, who sent Jack £223, avoided jail after being sentenced to 15 months’ imprisonment, suspended for 12 months.
Speaking afterwards they highlighted their commitment to help their son return home and stressed that he ‘is still a British citizen’.
Jack previously admitted he was at one time prepared to carry out a suicide attack, telling the BBC: ‘I used to want to at one point, believe it or not. Not a vest. I wanted to do it in a car. I said if there’s a chance, I will do it.’ He also said in the interview, which took place in October last year but was not broadcast until after his parents’ trial had ended, that he realised he had been ‘an enemy of Britain’ but added that he had made ‘a big mistake’.
The latest decision follows a move by the then Home Secretary Sajid Javid to strip Islamic State bride Shamima Begum of her British citizenship in February.
It happened after the 19-year-old turned up pregnant in a refugee camp in Syria ahead of the fall of the group’s self-proclaimed territorial caliphate. Her baby son Jarrah died at three weeks old.
Shamima was one of three girls from Bethnal Green, east London, who left the UK aged just 15 in February 2015 and travelled to Syria to join Islamic State.
Under international law, a person can only be stripped of their citizenship by a government as long as it does not leave the individual stateless. It was thought Shamima may have a claim in Bangladesh because of her family background, something Bangladeshi officials denied.
Politicians in Dhaka said the teenager could face the death penalty if she was sent there because of her involvement in terrorism.
Around 900 male and female extremists went from the UK to fight for Isis. Of those, around 200 are believed to have been killed while another 360 have already returned home.
Anti-terror police say as many as 200 jihadists who are alive would pose a significant threat to security if they were ever to return.
Both the Home Office and Foreign Office told Metro.co.uk there were no official figures for how many UK children have been born or taken overseas.
According to a 2018 report from the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation (ICSR) at least 3,704 foreign-born children were taken to Islamic State territory by their parents or carers. This includes 460 from France, at least 350 from Russia and almost 400 from Morocco.
Source: Metro, Jane Wharton, August 18, 2019
⚑ | Report an error, an omission, a typo; suggest a story or a new angle to an existing story; submit a piece, a comment; recommend a resource; contact the webmaster, contact us: deathpenaltynews@gmail.com.
 |  |
Opposed to Capital Punishment? Help us keep this blog up and running! DONATE!
"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted." -- Oscar Wilde
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted." -- Oscar Wilde