I left Isil after all my friends were killed, says Jihadi Jack
A MUSLIM convert nicknamed Jihadi Jack taught children about terror and created propaganda videos, he has admitted in an interview.
The admisison came before Jack Letts’s parents were convicted of funding terrorism by sending him money.
Letts, 23, said he left Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil) after fearing for his life when 20 friends were killed.
In an interview with the BBC, he admitted that he taught recruits under the age of 15, referred to as “cubs”, about Isil ideology. After almost losing an arm in battle, he became a contributor to Dabiq, an online recruitment magazine, and then made Isil videos.
It took Letts three months to get to Syria after travelling through Kuwait, Jordan and Turkey before crossing into Syria at Al Raj.
He claimed to have been radicalised in part by a British Isil cell from Portsmouth, most of whom are reportedly dead. In the interview at a Kurdish prison camp, Letts said: “If it was an Islamic state, I wouldn’t have left. The main reasons I left the so-called Islamic State is because they started to kill people – I know them personally – that are Muslims. I had a group of about 20 friends that all left... One by one, they started to kill them.”
Letts said he was caught at the border as he tried to escape into Turkey after expecting safe passage through Al-Nusra Front territory. He said: “They would help us leave. They would get us a smuggler. Nusra Front, not great guys, but they’re a lot more trustworthy than the Free Syrian Army.”
The convert left his middle-class home in Oxford to become one of Isil’s most notorious recruits before his eventual capture. Now, after languishing in prison for two years, Letts said that he regretted becoming the “poster boy” for Islamic extremism.
Letts faces being barred from returning to the UK under rules that allow Sajid Javid, the Home Secretary, to strip him of his citizenship provided it would not make him stateless.
On Friday, Letts’ parents, John Letts, 58, and Sally Lane, 57, were found guilty of funding terrorism after sending their son £223 while he was in Syria. The pair each received 15 months’ jail, suspended for 12 months.