Jihadi Jack to be repatriated by Canada

CANADA will repatriate the Britishborn Islamic State member known as “Jihadi Jack”, along with 22 of its citizens being held in Islamic State prison camps in north-east Syria.

Jack Letts, 28, a Muslim convert who once held dual British and Canadian citizenship, declared he was an “enemy of Britain” after travelling from Oxfordshire to Syria to join the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (IS) terror group as a teenager. But when was captured by Kurdish forces in 2017, he begged to be allowed to return to the UK, insisting he had “no intention” of killing Britons. He became the responsibility of the Canadian government in 2019 when he was stripped of his British citizenship.

Canada said it would take back 23 of its citizens – six women, 13 infants, and four men – after a legal challenge mounted against the government by the detainees’ relatives claimed that preventing them from entering Canada violated their constitutional rights.

Mr Letts’ parents, Sally Lane and John Letts, said they were “overjoyed” at the news. They have previously said there was no evidence their son was an IS fighter. “The federal government has been ordered to go to the region to bring back the men, and the judge has said this has to happen ‘as soon as possible’,” Ms Lane told the Middle East Eye.

She added: “He [Judge Henry Brown] referred to the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, international humanitarian law and the Magna Carta in his judgment, so this case will have global implications for the cases of… other detainees, particularly the men.”

“Britain… the most… authoritarian government over this issue, should take note of this judgment and bring all its people home,” Ms Lane said.