Jack Letts, also known as “Jihadi Jack”, has been stripped of his British citizenship while being held in a Syrian prison
Letts was raised and went to school in the UK and converted to Islam at the age of 16. He left his home in Oxfordshire to join Isis five years ago and has been imprisoned in northern Syria since 2017. He has admitted to some of his crimes while with the terrorist organisation and had hoped to be tried in Britain.
The decision to strip him of his UK citizenship was one of the last made by Theresa May as prime minister and Sajid Javid as home secretary, and the move has been endorsed by their respective successors, Boris Johnson and Priti Patel.
International law forbids people from being rendered stateless, but British law allows the UK to strip terror suspects abroad of their citizenship if they are a dual national or able to obtain citizenship of another country. Letts qualifies for a Canadian passport by descent through his father, but the government’s act has created a diplomatic row between the UK and Canada.
The news appears to have caught the Canadian government unawares. A representative of that country expressed their disappointment that the United Kingdom had taken the unilateral action to “offload their responsibilities”. The practice of citizenship stripping is becoming more and more commonplace but remains controversial amid accusations that it merely transfers responsibility for the problem of dealing with terrorist fighters elsewhere. The United States has voiced concern over the UK’s unwillingness to repatriate Isis fighters held in Syria and put them on trial.
