RAQQA, SYRIA –
Editor’s note: This is the first of a three-part investigation in which CTV W5’s Avery Haines tells the story of Jack Letts, a Canadian Muslim convert currently in a Syrian jail after he was accused of being a member of the Islamic State. Part one focuses on his family’s fight to bring their son home.
Jack Letts in a Syrian prison speaking with W5.
Jack Letts has spent seven-and-a-half years in a legal black hole. Detained without charge in a secret prison in northeast Syria, he is accused of being a member of ISIS, but has never been tried or convicted. His parents, John Letts and Sally Lane, have fought tirelessly to bring him home.
Born in the U.K., Letts holds Canadian citizenship through his father. Each day, John Letts struggles with guilt over his son’s plight.
“I’ve had a good night’s sleep in a reasonably warm bed. Jack’s lying on a cement floor, suffering. I eat breakfast, and he doesn’t. I have a hot shower. I feel guilty,” he told W5. “So how do you live with that as a constant thing throughout your day? You can’t live with that.”
A young Jack Letts, second from the right, with family (Supplied photo)
Who is Jack Letts?
Jack Letts was born in Oxford, England. His parents say he was a popular kid who loved acting, music and sports. His personality changed drastically when he was 14 and diagnosed with severe obsessive-compulsive disorder. Jack became fixated on Islam and converted at 16. Two years later, in 2014, he travelled to Syria, drawn, his parents say, by the pro-democracy protests against Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad.
“I really think he felt that if he didn’t go and help—his OCD was compelling him to go to be a good Muslim—then he would go to hell,” John said.
Captured by Kurdish forces in 2017, Letts claims he was fleeing ISIS after being targeted for speaking out against the group.
“If you get caught trying to escape, they kill you,” said John. “Whether you went thinking it was a utopia and were misled, as many were, once you’re in and want to escape, how do you get out?”
Sally added: “ISIS has done absolutely horrific things. But not everybody who went to Syria was a member or did awful things.”
When news first broke that a British-Canadian teen from Oxford had gone to Syria in 2016 the British tabloids nicknamed him “Jihadi Jack,” with a photo of him in ISIS territory appearing to be giving a so-called ISIS salute. His parents point out that he made a similar gesture long before he went to Syria.
On the left, Jack Letts in a photo posted on Facebook near the Tabqa Dam in Syria and on the right, a photo of him as a child making the same hand gesture (Supplied photo)
In a BBC prison interview in 2019, he said he had contemplated carrying out a suicide bombing, but that he later denounced the group’s ideology as being anti-Muslim.
“I just want people to have an open mind,” Sally said. “They can have as many questions as they want. What did he do? What didn’t he do? Those are the same questions I have. I want to know.”
Canada’s role
The U.K. stripped Jack Letts of his British citizenship in 2019, leaving Canada as his only potential recourse. However, there has been little public or political appetite to intervene.
Sally has organized protests, hunger strikes, and petitions, hoping to persuade Canada to repatriate her son—even if it means putting him on trial.
“I’d be perfectly happy if he was tried in Canada. It’s not as if there isn’t a process for this,” she said. “I think it’s ironic that families are calling for trials, not governments.”
Sally Lane, Jack’s mother, in an interview with W5
John echoes her frustration: “Where’s the evidence? Bring it forward. Put him on trial. How can you condemn someone without even having a trial?”
The numbers
Jack Letts is one of at least nine Canadian men among 10,000 suspected ISIS members detained in 29 makeshift prisons across northeast Syria. Most detainees are foreigners who cannot defend themselves against the allegations due to the absence of a legal system.
The prisons are controlled by U.S.-backed Kurdish forces that reclaimed northeast Syria from ISIS in 2019. Amnesty International and the United Nations have denounced the conditions as arbitrary detention with evidence of torture.
Ilham Ahmed, a senior Kurdish official, has repeatedly called for nations to repatriate their citizens.
“It is imperative that these individuals be repatriated. Their presence here is illegal, and they have no rights under our laws,” she told W5.
Despite these calls, Canada has not responded. Canada’s Foreign Affairs Minister Melanie Joly has refused repeated requests for an interview. At a recent event in Toronto, she said: “When you decide to join ISIS and you leave the country…you bear the responsibility for your decision.”
Tayab Ali, Jack Letts’ lawyer, has never had access to his client. He says Canada’s policy flies in the face of the concept of innocent until proven guilty: “When do our values allow us to say…I’m going to …keep them in detention indefinitely without evidence because I think that person’s committed a crime. Isn’t that the system we’ve created?””
Global security threat
The United States has repatriated all 27 American male detainees, with 10 charged upon their return. U.S. officials, including Secretary of State Antony Blinken, have urged other nations to follow suit, warning of the risks posed by leaving detainees in a politically unstable region.
“Ten thousand ISIS fighters remain in custody—the largest concentration of detained terrorists anywhere in the world,” said Ian Moss of the U.S. Bureau of Counterterrorism. “If they escape, they will pose a threat not only to northeast Syria but also to our homelands.”
ISIS sleeper cells are increasingly active in Syria and continuously try to break detainees out to form what would be a ready-made ISIS army. In a nine-day siege in 2022, 400 inmates escaped during a sophisticated ISIS prison break.
Courts weigh in
In 2023, it seemed Canada would be forced to act. A federal court judge ruled that Canadian men detained in Syria had the right to return. Justice Henry Brown wrote: “Notably, [the government] does not allege any of the applicants engaged in or assisted in terrorist activities.”
For Sally and John, it was a rare moment of hope.
“We were ecstatic. I got messages from all over the world saying this is fantastic,” Sally recalled. “We were elated. Jack is coming home.”
But the government appealed and won. The appeal court judge ruled Canada was not legally obligated to repatriate its citizens, but added that the decision didn’t preclude the government from making efforts on its own. The Supreme Court has refused to hear the case.
Canada’s contradictory policy
Canada has repatriated six women and 25 children from Syrian detention camps, some of whom have been charged or placed under peace bonds upon their return. Sally Lane questions why the men are treated differently.
“Why is the Canadian government denying the men a fair trial? The women have come back. Some of them have been charged. Some of them haven’t,” she said.
The repatriation of women has also faced controversy with demands for a federal inquiry after a Canadian mother who was denied repatriation because of security concerns, later died mysteriously in Turkish custody. Her six children are now in Canada.
Parents’ fight
Sally Lane lives in Ottawa and continues to advocate for her son’s repatriation. She hasn’t had contact with Jack in years and has no proof he is still alive.
“I know of three European families who found out over a year later that their loved one died [in prison],” Sally said. “That does scare me, that you can be thinking he is alive and he isn’t.”
John Letts, Jack’s father, in an interview with W5
John Letts said the fight has consumed their lives.
“Until I die, I’m going to try to get my son out. What else can you do? We can’t stop because it’s what a parent has to do.”