“I want my son to come back. I want him to have the opportunity to defend himself. This is the message from the father of an alleged Canadian jihadist to the federal government. Without news for a year, John Letts is stepping up legal proceedings to force Ottawa to repatriate his son Jack, detained for almost five years in a Syrian prison.
“As long as I have any hope, I will have to keep trying,” he said.
Ever since his son was taken prisoner, John Letts has lived with a constant sense of panic.
PHOTO ETIENNE RANGER, THE RIGHT
John Letts, visiting Ottawa this week to pressure the Government of Canada to repatriate his son Jack, who has been detained for almost five years in a Syrian prison.
The possibility that he is dead, or that he has been tortured so much that he no longer recognizes me, terrifies me. I feel guilty that I cannot help him. I am her daddy.
John Letts, on his son Jack
Jack Letts, 26, is one of a group of a few dozen Canadians, including many children, who have been held in detention camps run by Kurdish forces in Syria since the fall of the Islamic State (IS) armed group. The question of their repatriation has been debated several times. Ottawa’s response is still much the same. It is still in the case of Jack Letts: “The Government of Canada is aware of the detention of Canadian citizens in Syria. Given the security situation on the ground, the capacity of the Government of Canada to provide consular assistance in Syria is extremely limited, ”writes a spokesperson for Global Affairs Canada in an email to Press.
“We don’t know if he’s still alive”
Jack’s case is special. He was born in England to a Franco-Ontarian father and a British-Canadian mother. He grew up and always lived on the Old Continent, but he has held Canadian citizenship since his birth. In 2019, in a move strongly denounced by the Canadian government, the United Kingdom withdrew his British citizenship. Canada is therefore its last chance.
Converted to Islam as a teenager, the young man set off for Syria in 2014. He married and had a child. Several media reported that he joined ISIS. Kurdish forces have held him for four and a half years on this basis. British newspapers have dubbed him “Jihadi Jack”. In an interview with the British BBC television station while in captivity, he admitted that he had been an “enemy of England” and that he had already been prepared to carry out a suicide bombing, but added that he now considered that this violence was anti-Muslim. He claimed he hadn’t killed anyone.
His father believes in his innocence. According to him, his son is not violent. He hated ISIS and was stuck in its territory.
“He was 18 years old [quand il est parti]. He was won over by things he read on the internet. Is it okay to let him languish in a jail cell? Asks John Letts, who claims that Jack was tortured and drugged several times during his detention. He has no access to any consular, legal or medical service, deplores his family.
The latest news relatives received from Jack came in a letter from the Red Cross a year ago. The young man was then in a prison in the city of Kamychli, in Syrian Kurdistan. John Letts recognized his son’s handwriting, but the tone of the message was “strange”. “He called me ‘father’. It was very formal. For me, it was not normal. Instead of reassuring him, the letter contributed to his dismay. What condition was Jack in? Was he still in his head? Since then, nothing. “We don’t know if he’s still alive. ”
Hence the sense of urgency.
Visiting Ottawa
Mr Letts is visiting Ottawa from England this week in the hope of putting pressure on the authorities. He is to meet with humanitarian groups and a few deputies. All the elected Liberals and Conservatives he approached declined his request for an interview or simply did not respond.
It didn’t discourage him. “If I have to go and live in a tent in front of the parliament, I will.” ”
The man is not asking for a blank check. May his son be tried once in Canada, he said.
If he did something wrong, let him be punished. Let’s put him in jail. But there might be a chance he’s innocent. Everyone has the right to justice. If we lose that, we have nothing left.
John Letts, on his son Jack
Meanwhile, Mr. Letts and the mother of his son, Sally Lane, are taking legal steps to force the government to bring him to Canada.
The family, along with the parents of other Canadians in the same situation, is suing the federal government. They allege that Ottawa’s lack of action to secure the return of its nationals – despite demands from the Kurds themselves – violates constitutional rights.
The Letts also filed a complaint with the United Nations against Canada and the United Kingdom. It denounces the inaction of the Canadian government and it is held responsible for anything that could happen to Jack.
Finally, a petition sponsored by former Green Party leader Elizabeth May calling for the return of all Canadians detained in Syria was also launched.
John Letts and Sally Lane were convicted in England of financing terrorism for sending Jack a few hundred dollars in Syria, years before his capture. They thought they were sending the money to a friend of his in Lebanon.
Should we repatriate the presumed Canadian jihadists and their families?
While countries have already repatriated several of their nationals detained in Syrian camps, 26 to 47 Canadians, the majority of whom are children, remain locked there in “disastrous” conditions.
The subject has been debated for years in the public arena. Should we repatriate the men and women who left Canada to join the Islamic State armed group and who are now being held by Kurdish forces? And what to do with their children?
Many voices have been raised to ask that they be brought back to the country. Although the federal government has always officially denied it, we would have come close to a rescue mission a few years ago, had told Press in 2019 several families and leaders of humanitarian groups.
Press had notably obtained written exchanges dating from January 2018 between Jack Letts and a Canadian civil servant. The latter offered him help and asked him, in particular, if he wanted to come to Canada. Then nothing. Radio silence. Other families said they had suffered the same about-face.
“Disgusting” conditions
According to a report published in 2020 by the international organization Human Rights Watch (HRW), there were at the time 8 men, 13 women and 26 Canadian children in the camps. Amarnath Amarasingam, a researcher at Dalhousie University and expert on jihadist extremism, cites similar figures today. A petition posted by the family of Jack Letts speaks of 26 Canadian citizens (14 children, 8 women and 4 men) detained in northern Syria.
All these estimates do not take into account the suspected jihadists who have been captured by other groups and who are imprisoned elsewhere, notably in Iraq.
These people live in “disgusting” conditions and are victims of “serious abuse, torture and inhuman and degrading treatment”. They must be repatriated “urgently”, HRW asked last year.
Their situation has not improved since, said Amarnath Amarasingam, who himself visited the camps.
The camps are a disaster. Nobody is doing well. They have endured several winters and a pandemic.
Amarnath Amarasingam, researcher at Dalhousie University and expert on jihadist extremism
According to him, the prisoners have no contact with the Government of Canada. This is also what HRW’s report said last year. The group accuses Ottawa of evading its international human rights obligations, failing to support the families of detainees, “illegally refusing the granting of consular assistance” and failing to take the necessary measures to help its nationals .
Response from the Trudeau government
Every time he has been arrested, the Trudeau government has responded much the same. It is too dangerous for its officials to travel to this part of the world.
Several Western countries have carried out operations there, including France, Germany and the United Kingdom, which have all returned radicalized citizens prisoners to Syria.
Last year, a 5-year-old girl, Amira, was reunited in complete secrecy with her Toronto uncle. The family had gone to the camp themselves to try to bring her back, to no avail. She had filed a lawsuit against the government.
One morning in October 2020, the family lawyer received an unexpected call. A representative of Canadian Foreign Affairs announced that Amira was no longer in the camp, that she was in the company of a Canadian consular representative and that she was on her way to Toronto. “It is obvious that with his repatriation, the issue of security or consular representation no longer holds”, underlined Mr.e Lawrence Greenspon.