The nightmare of making an attempt to save lots of our son Jack from Isis | EUROtoday

The nightmare that unravelled the lives of Sally Lane and John Letts began with a single cellphone name greater than 12 years in the past.

The British-Canadian dad and mom had initially been relieved when their eldest son, Jack, confirmed a pure proficiency in Arabic.

Their introverted teenager, with an apologetic smile, had been fighting extreme obsessive-compulsive dysfunction in school in a quiet middle-class neighbourhood of Oxford. He transformed to Islam and requested to spend a part of his hole yr finding out Arabic in Kuwait.

Just a couple of weeks into the course, in August 2014, he known as dwelling. “Mum, I’m in Syria,” he stated earlier than the crackly line went useless.

It marked the beginning of greater than a decade of Sally, 63, and John, 65, making an attempt to save lots of their beloved, troubled son and convey him dwelling.

A combat that continues right this moment and has left their household in ruins.

“It was just a 10-second phone call,” Sally tells The Independent, recalling the day that upended their lives. John, an natural farmer and archaeologist, remembers speeding dwelling “terrified”.

“We were horrified. I used to sleep with my phone beside my bed, thinking I was going to get a call at any minute saying that he hadn’t made it. It was horrific,” Sally continues.

“Since then, we have been screaming into a void.”

Jack had travelled into Isis-controlled territory in Syria, though he has repeatedly denied becoming a member of or preventing for the group that he claims really went on to jail him.

In 2016, he was seized by the Kurds and has been held with out cost or trial in Isis prisons in Syria, largely incommunicado, ever since. His dad and mom say he has been tortured and abused.

Back within the UK, a journalist christened him “Jihadi Jack”, a moniker which they are saying sealed their son’s destiny and nonetheless haunts them right this moment: limitless articles have pored over the “first British white boy” accused of becoming a member of the worldwide terror group, regardless of there being no formal investigation or authorized proceedings.

To compound the distress, each Sally and John have been themselves convicted on a terrorism-funding cost they vehemently deny, after making an attempt (and failing) to ship him cash to flee Syria once they say he was being hounded by Isis militants.

Later, Jack could be stripped of his UK citizenship, ending their marketing campaign to have him repatriated to Britain, even to face trial. Under stress, Sally and John’s marriage fell aside.

Amid a rising battle between rival factions in Syria, Jack is now believed to be amongst almost 6,000 males from dozens of nationalities transferred by the US navy to a jail in Iraq in February this yr, which in flip got here beneath missile hearth in the course of the US-Iran battle.

But there isn’t a solution to converse to their son to substantiate.

Sally says the brand new risk is his “imminent execution” in Baghdad, the place Human Rights Watch has warned of “well-documented due process violations in counterterrorism proceedings” – one thing the Iraqi Ministry of Justice, in an announcement to The Independent, denied.

“All of this has completely destroyed the family. Everything. Absolutely everything,” says Sally, her voice ringing with despair.

“I have to think about him every single second. Is he being abused? Is he being tortured? Is he being beaten? Is his mind still there? It’s been a decade.”

John, additionally determined and offended, says they’ve spent years in an unsuccessful battle to get both the British or Canadian governments to acknowledge their case and repatriate him, even to face trial right here.

“We’ve spent the last five or six years trying to run a campaign and trying to physically survive in a world where no one will hire you because you’re labelled a terrorist, the father of Jihadi Jack, the mother of Jihadi Jack,” he explains, with bitterness in his voice.

“We just want our son to be alive and to be freed, or at least to be dealt with properly if he has done something wrong. But we seem to have exhausted every chance we have to help our son.

“As a parent, you’re not going to give up trying to help your child if you can. I can’t even have a hot meal or a hot shower without feeling guilty.”

‘We have not spoken to Jack for nine years’

Jack was nonetheless a youngster when he made that decision dwelling in the summertime of 2014.

Militants within the newly coined “Islamic State” had violently unfurled their new “caliphate”, seizing swathes of Iraq and a Syria already within the grip of a grinding civil struggle.

In the UK, the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) argued he was radicalised in Britain earlier than he travelled to the Middle East. He denied being an Isis fighter and has maintained, within the few media interviews he has given from jail beneath the watchful gaze of his Kurdish jail guards, that he labored as a translator for the civilian administration in Isis-controlled territory.

At some level, he obtained married and had a toddler – their present whereabouts are unknown. He has claimed in interviews that he was jailed 3 times by Isis.

Jack’s dad and mom say they haven’t been permitted to talk to their son since July 2017. He has written eight letters since then, delivered by the International Committee of the Red Cross.

The final was in 2021, through which he wrote of the entire world hating him. Otherwise, the one contact Jack has with the surface world is thru these uncommon interviews with journalists, throughout which he’s watched by guards.

Sally and John despatched The Independent a signed witness assertion, written by a outstanding rights lawyer who managed to go to Jack in jail in Syria in 2018. He stated Jack spoke of torture, solitary confinement, slicing his personal wrists in Kurdish detention – and having to misinform journalists about what occurred because of the presence of the guards.

The final time his dad and mom “saw” him was on display when a Canadian documentary crew interviewed him in a Syrian jail in 2024.

“It was a real shock to see him in that documentary. He was like a different person. He’d aged 30 years. It was awful,” continues Sally, her personal face etched with years of preventing.

“Is his mind still there? He has been staring at a wall for nine years.”

Jack has by no means been formally charged or despatched to trial. In John and Sally’s personal proceedings, the CPS known as their son “Daesh-supporting” and stated it “presented evidence from witnesses and messages exchanged by Jack and his parents that showed they knew he held violent, extremist views before they sent him the money.”

They cited Facebook posts to his account whereas he was in Syria, through which he condoned violence in the direction of a British soldier – and talked of slicing off a good friend’s head.

Jack’s dad and mom imagine his password was taken by Isis members, and he didn’t write the posts – one thing Jack has himself stated. And Jack has nonetheless by no means been charged.

Instead, in 2019, John and Sally discovered themselves within the dock.

They have been charged with three counts of getting into right into a funding association for the needs of terrorism after they tried to ship cash to Jack in Syria in 2015 by way of an middleman, once they believed he was on the run from Isis.

During the trial, the police conceded it was “natural” for fogeys to care for his or her son however claimed that they had warned them of Jack’s actions and instructed them “not to send him money or risk prosecution”.

John and Sally vehemently denied the fees and demand they have been granted police permission to ship cash to their son, who by no means even acquired the £223 they tried to ship. However, the couple have been discovered responsible of 1 depend and handed a 15-month jail sentence, suspended for a yr.

John describes the proceedings as a “proxy trial for Jack”.

“Our family was destroyed. We couldn’t stay in our house. It caused massive problems,” he continues, including that it vastly affected his different son, who was finding out for his A-levels when all of the computer systems within the family have been confiscated mid-investigation.

“You’re told that your whole life’s going to be destroyed. Your business is gonna be taken away from you. You’re never gonna have a bank account, you’re never gonna have to travel. Your life is destroyed because you are ‘terrorists’,” he provides.

‘They washed their hands of this’

In 2019, a brand new nightmare erupted when a letter arrived at their home, informing them, with out warning, that Jack had been stripped of his citizenship.

“After that, the British government said, ‘Not our issue. We wash our hands of this. It’s now a Canadian problem,’’’ John continues.

Since 2010 alone, the UK has stripped more than 200 people of citizenship on “public good” grounds, a quantity solely surpassed by Bahrain and Nicaragua, based on a report launched by the Runnymede Trust and Reprieve final yr.

Under the legislation, the house secretary can strip citizenship in the event that they decide that doing so could be “conducive to the public good”.

The Home Office declined to touch upon Jack’s case however stated: “Deprivation of citizenship is used to protect the British public from some of the most dangerous people, including terrorists and serious organised criminals.”

With all doorways closed in London, Sally travelled to Canada to foyer the authorities to convey her son dwelling, as he nonetheless – formally – has Canadian citizenship.

After a prolonged battle in court docket, the Federal Court of Appeal dominated that Canada just isn’t obligated beneath the legislation to repatriate Jack. In November 2024, the Supreme Court lastly declined to listen to their problem to that ruling, ending that final hope.

“The Supreme Court said we’re not even going to hear the case. We went through the whole court system and they refused to even hear our appeal,” Sally provides bitterly.

‘It’s out of the frying pan into the fireplace’

Even when Sally and John just lately reached out to the Canadian authorities, fearing that, beneath Iraq’s judicial course of, he would face an unfair trial and execution, “Canada replied, yes sorry, we can’t interfere with Iraq’s judicial process,” Sally says.

Thida Ith, a spokesperson for Global Affairs Canada, stated they have been conscious of the switch of Canadian detainees and stay “actively engaged with local authorities” however weren’t within the means of repatriating its residents.

“The safety and security of Canadians always remain the utmost priority for the government of Canada while meeting necessary legal obligations,” she added.

Iraq’s Justice Ministry spokesperson Ahmed Laibi confirmed that in February, 5,704 folks, together with 10 with ties to the UK, have been transferred from Syria to al-Karkh Central Prison, situated close to a US base and Baghdad airport.

They are going through varied fees beneath Iraqi legislation, he stated, together with “membership in the Isis terrorist organisation, carrying out criminal operations inside or outside Iraqi borders, membership in this terrorist group, destabilising the country, disrupting the social fabric, and shedding Iraqi blood”.

Laibi confirmed that international residents might be repatriated to their dwelling international locations after their trials if they don’t seem to be sentenced to loss of life, depending on joint cooperation agreements with these states. He vehemently denied allegations of abuse.

But on the time of the switch in February, Human Rights Watch warned that detainees are “at risk of enforced disappearance, unfair trials, torture, ill-treatment, and violations of the right to life” in Iraq.

“Victims of Isis crimes deserve genuine justice, and that requires fair trials for the accused,” Sarah Sanbar, HRW’s Iraq researcher, added.

US armed forces and the Pentagon declined to touch upon considerations of abuse in Iraq or to offer particulars in regards to the detainees, however deferred to an announcement asserting the switch.

In desperation, John and Sally additionally reached out to the UK minister for the Middle East, Hamish Falconer, however stated they have been instructed in a letter that Jack was disadvantaged of his British citizenship “and is therefore not eligible for consular assistance from the UK government”.

When requested about Jack or the switch of the opposite folks related to Britain, the Foreign Office declined to touch upon his particular case.

However, a spokesperson stated: “Protecting our national security is the first priority for the UK government. That is why we are continuing to work with the Syrian and Iraqi governments, as well as other partners, to protect our shared security interests in the region, and ensure the enduring defeat of Daesh.”

‘We’ve been screaming right into a void for 12 years’

For John, transferring Jack from Syria to Iraq is a catastrophe: “What’s happened in Iraqi prisons is horrendous. It means more torture for Jack. And now, the [Iran] war.”

Sally says they’ve been “screaming into a void for 12 years.”

“We’re in a surreal world where British citizens and Canadian citizens are about to be executed, and everybody collectively shrugs. I don’t know what to do any more.

“They have to take responsibility to protect their citizens from torture and death and the death penalty. And if they can’t do that, what are they for?”