British-Canadian parents of ‘Jihadi Jack’ convicted of funding terror for sending son money – By Tom Blackwell (National Post) / June 21 2019
‘We have been convicted for doing what any parent would do if they thought that their child’s life was in danger,’ the couple said. ‘We are committed to help Jack return home’
Their defence lawyers called the prosecution an “inhumane” targeting of desperate, loving parents. Prosecutors said the same couple were willfully blind to obvious realities.
On Friday, a U.K. jury sided with the latter view. It found the British-Canadian parents of a suspected ISIL member guilty of funding terrorism over money they wired to Jack Letts, now 23, to try to help him escape a terorrist-held part of Syria.
The verdict is the latest blow for a couple whose efforts to free their son – dubbed “Jihadi Jack” by the British press and now held in a Kurdish prison – have included lobbying the Canadian government.
But Ontario-born John Letts, 58, and his wife Sally Lane, 57, were spared time in jail, as a judge gave the pair a suspended sentence of 15 months, according to various British media reports. Unless they commit another offence, they will not have to serve the time.
“It was one thing for parents to be optimistic about their children and I do acknowledge he is your son who you love very much,” said Justice Nicholas Hilliard in sentencing them, reported the Independent. “But in this context you did lose sight of realities…. The warning signs were there for you to see.”
At an Old Bailey trial the parents and their lawyers had tried to stop on constitutional grounds, jurors heard that the parents were warned by others that their son had been radicalized, and by police not to send him money.
But they did anyway, convinced he could use it to pay a people smuggler to get him out of Raqqa, the de-facto capital of ISIL’s so-called caliphate, which fell to U.S.-aided forces in 2017.
They were convicted of wiring Jack 223 pounds in September 2015, but acquitted of attempting to send another 1,000 pounds that December, transfers that were blocked by authorities, The Guardian reports. The jury could not reach a verdict on a third charge of sending money.
Sally Lane and John Letts, parents of Jack Letts, arrive at the Old Bailey court in central London on Jan. 12, 2017. DANIEL LEAL-OLIVAS / AFP/Getty Images
“We have been convicted for doing what any parent would do if they thought that their child’s life was in danger,” Letts, an organic farmer, and Lane, a former book editor, said in a statement outside court. “The heavy price we paid today is an indicator of the love we have for our children. We are committed to help Jack return home.”
John Letts grew up near Chatham, Ont., and Lane’s family moved to Ontario when she was a child, but the couple emigrated back to England after meeting in Canada, settling in Oxford. They and their two children all have joint citizenship.
Jack Letts travelled to the Middle East in 2014 after converting to Islam.
Court heard that a member of his mosque had warned the parents that he might have been radicalized and they should confiscate his passport, but they still bought him a plane ticket to Jordan in 2014 for a “grand Middle East adventure.”
Letts was only 18, but married a woman in Iraq and eventually ended up in ISIL-controlled Syria.
He came to British authorities’ attention when he posted extremist sentiments on Facebook, saying about a picture of a schoolmate — named Linus Doubtfire — in army uniform, “I would love to perform a martyrdom operation in this scene.”
When his parents angrily challenged him about the posting, he responded: “I would happily kill each and every one of Linus Unit personally. This message for you, mum and (younger brother) Tyler, I honestly want to cut Linus head off,” according to The Daily Telegraph.
“I hope he finds himself lost in (Iraqi cities) Beji or Fallujah one day and sees me whilst I’m armed and I will put six bullets in his head.”
We have been convicted for doing what any parent would do
Lane testified that she was horrified when she learned Jack was in Syria and screamed at him, “How could you be so stupid?”
Defence counsel Henry Blaxland had earlier said the prosecution of the couple was “inhumane to the point of being cruel,” according to the BBC.
But prosecutor Alison Morgan told the court that “parents turning a blind eye to the obvious is not a defence.”
John Letts has fought hard to convince the Canadian government to help free his son from a prison in Kurdish-held Syria, the British having all but refused to act. Emails suggested Global Affairs Canada was initially eager to help, but later suggested it did not have the ability to intervene in the region.
In an interview by Britain’s ITV earlier this year, Jack Letts played down his Canadian identity when asked whether he felt British or Canadian.
“I did at one point in my life have a Canadian passport, I don’t know if it’s still valid,” he told the channel. “If the U.K. accepted me then I’d go back to the U.K., it’s my home. But I don’t think that’s going to happen.”
Jack Letts in Syria, where he lived in the ISIL capital. Letts, captured by Kurdish forces as a suspected ISIL fighter, is a joint British-Canadian citizen and Kurdish authorities have talked of possibly releasing him to Canadian officials.Facebook
