“Jihadi Jack” Who Left UK At 18 For Syria To Join Islamic State Loses British Citizenship

Jack Letts- a UK-Canadian citizen- popularly known as “Jihadi Jack” has been stripped of his British citizenship, reports BBC.

Jack, a Muslim covert from Britain was 18 when he left his Oxfordshire school in 2014 to join Islamic State fighters in Syria. He was jailed after being captured by Kurdish YPG forces while trying to flee to Turkey in May 2017. He had converted to Islam when he was 16.

As the Islamic State group’s strength falls in the Middle East, several countries including Britain the question of their citizens who willingly went to Syria to join the terror-group and fight against their own country.

While a section supports these, asking the government to bring them back and try them as British nationals, others ask for a cancellation of their citizenship as they waged a war against their own country.

In an interview with the BBC's Quentin Sommerville, Jack said: "I know I was definitely an enemy of Britain."

"I thought I was leaving something behind and going to something better," he said. He added that he knew he wasn’t innocent and he wanted an “appropriate” punishment not “haphazard, freestyle punishment in Syria."

The parents of the terrorist, John Letts, 58, and Sally Lane, 57, were convicted in June this year of funding terrorism after sending their son £223. They have criticised the decision as a "really disappointing" move by the British government that was "just shirking responsibility and passing the buck off to the Canadians."

Canada also criticised the move. "Terrorism knows no borders, so countries need to work together to keep each other safe,” Canada's public safety minister Ralph Goodale's office statement said.