LONDON: Canada’s government has announced it will repatriate the infamous British-born Daesh member known as “Jihadi Jack,” along with 22 other people being held in Daesh camps in Syria.
The 28-year-old Muslim convert, Jack Letts, held dual British and Canadian citizenship before the UK Home Office stripped him of his citizenship in 2019 after he declared himself an “enemy of Britain.”
He traveled to Syria to join the terror group as a teenager.
After Letts was captured in 2017 by Kurdish forces, he lost his British citizenship and legally became the responsibility of the Canadian government, who accused the UK of taking “unilateral action to offload their responsibilities.”
Letts argued he should be allowed to return to the UK, insisting he had “no intention” of killing Britons.
Alongside Letts, 22 other Canadian citizens — six women, 13 infants, and three men — will be repatriated after a successful challenge by their families against the Canadian government.
According to its ruling, the Canadian federal court said preventing the prisoners from entering Canada would violate their constitutional rights, citing “conditions of the prison and the fact that the men have not been charged and brought to trial,” the Telegraph reported.
Letts’ parents were reported to be “overjoyed” at the news, with his mother Sally adding: “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.’”
She continued: “(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 all the other detainees, particularly the men.
“Britain, in particular, which has been the most recalcitrant and authoritarian government over this issue, should take note of this judgment and bring all its people home,” she said.
