Jihadi Jack parents arrested for trying to send him cash
THE parents of a British Muslim convert accused of joining Islamic State in Syria have revealed they were arrested after trying to send him money.
Jack Letts, dubbed ‘Jihadi Jack’, is suspected of being the first white Briton to join the terror group after he left his Oxford home and travelled to the warravaged country in 2014.
His parents Sally Lane and John Letts were arrested under the Terrorism Act after trying to send money to him in Syria, which they claim was for new glasses.
They have been bailed until February 17, police have said.
The couple told how their son suffers from obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) and fear he ‘won’t get out alive’.
Mr Letts, 55, an organic farmer and baker, said: ‘I’m furious really. I’m very upset.
‘I think it’s crazy that we can’t send a penny to our ill son to help him get out or to help him in any way because we’ll be seen as sup- porting terrorism.’ He added: ‘Any parent’s going to act the way we have and feel the way we do.
‘You wouldn’t be a parent if you didn’t try to protect your child.’
According to reports, 20-yearold Jack Letts now goes by the name Abu Mohammed, and has married an Iraqi woman with whom he has a son.
In the interview with Channel 4 News on Thursday, Miss Lane, 53, said: ‘It’s the worst feeling in the world. You feel completely helpless. Your child is out there. They have no support. They’re still reliant on you.
“He’s sending desperate messages to us saying it’s cold or he doesn’t have food or he can’t see.
‘We know that legally we’re not allowed to help him. I just don’t understand that.”
Mr Letts claimed the police have ‘put two and two together and made ten’. ‘He has the freedom to practise whatever he wants, that’s British values,’ he added.
‘It’s so unfair, but if there is any evidence that he’s done anything violent, if anyone can prove any of these allegations... I’ll be the first to believe it.
‘Because I don’t want a son who would do that type of thing, because that i s not how he was raised, and I don’t think that’s him.’
Miss Lane added: ‘ We have directly asked him. We know he won’t lie about his religion because anything to do with his religion he thinks he’ll go straight to hell.’
Thames Valley Police confirmed it had made two arrests.
A police spokesman said: ‘A 55year- old man and a 53-year- old woman from Oxford were arrested on suspicion of sending money to Syria which could be used for terrorism purposes... and were bailed until 17 February.’