Jack Letts, the middle-class Muslim convert from Oxford who escaped the former ISIS stronghold of Raqqa in Syria only to become a prisoner of a Kurdish militia, claims he has been tortured and fears he is losing his mind.
The Mail on Sunday today publishes a harrowing series of text and internet audio messages that Letts, 21 – once dubbed ‘Jihadi Jack’ – has sent from prison in the enclave of Rojava, controlled by the Kurdish PYD group, to his parents, John and Sally.
The couple have just ended a week-long hunger strike hoping to draw attention to his plight.
The messages reveal that, after being captured by the Kurds following his escape from ISIS, he was initially treated well, and told he would be handed over to the British within days. However, conditions rapidly
deteriorated.
The messages say that Letts – who has a history of mental illness – was forced to endure long periods of solitary confinement, deprived of food and exercise, threatened, then subjected to torture.
He claims Britain has done nothing to help achieve his release, and despite his repeated pleas, has sent no one to visit him even though the Kurds are Britain’s allies in the fight against Islamic State.
Nothing has been heard from him since a final, desperate audio message on July 8, which ended with a warning that he planned some kind of protest, although he knew this might get him shot.
Yesterday his Kurdish captors issued a statement in response to questions from this newspaper.
It said Letts had been charged with being an ISIS member, although his case was still ‘under investigation’, that he was being well treated and that he was still in weekly contact with his family.
But Sally Letts said: ‘That’s rubbish, a blatant lie and it discredits all their other claims. We have not heard a peep from him since July 8.’
The internet audio files and texts sent to Letts’s parents reveal:
Claims that his captors told him they were fed questions by British officials – suggesting that the UK Government knows where he is and who is holding him;
By July, Letts was getting at best one meal a day but some days no food at all;
A claim that he could prove he had been tortured and was ‘scared of electricity’ – suggesting he had been given or threatened with electric shocks.
Voice recordings and phone messages sent home by Letts:
Early hope upon capture
May 3: I’m still in Syria but I’m genuinely out of Isis territories. The Kurds are being good to me.
May 7: It is very clear that I was not a member of said group [ISIS]. I was within their territories, openly saying that they’re not [preaching] the truth. People genuinely thought I was crazy for doing that. Mum, I think the whole process of handing me over may be starting.
First doubts
May 26: I don’t understand why I’m in prison.
June 1: I’m just outside of the city, it looks like it used to be a school, now it’s a prison. It has guard towers. It’s the terrorism prison.
First threats of torture
June 1: Two people from intelligence branch came and asked me questions. They said the questions came from England. It was ‘What is the colour of your dad’s car? What is the first pet you had?’ It’s stupid, trying to check my identity after three weeks of solitary confinement.
June 19: [They] threatened me with torture. They say they’ll put me in a box.
Conditions worsen
June 19: Tell them to get me out of here. I don’t even care if Britain puts me in prison. Rather ten years over there than two days here. I can’t take it here. Every now and then I get threatened with torture.
July 1: They are starting to forget to bring me food. Now they only let me out for ten minutes. And the phone is now more taboo.
Pleas for help from Britain
June 19: The people here have told me they’re speaking to England. I can’t stay here any longer… Can’t they just send someone to come and get me?
Mental health deteriorates
June 25: Yesterday I had… a mental breakdown. Even the guards here were surprised. I actually went insane. I was punching the wall and my hand was bleeding.
Desperate last audio files
July 8: My health situation has got much worse. Now they don’t bring me food. There’s no such thing as going out any more. And then they punish you. I’ve actually been tortured, intimidated. I don’t want to still be here after a week because I’m scared of electricity. It’s one of my fears. Mum, I’ve actually been tortured. I can prove it as well. Within a week I’m going to start fighting back. What I’m going to do might result in me getting shot, but I’ve made my decision.
After July 8, there has been no contact.
The Kurdish security force holding him, known as the Asayish, has been condemned for holding prisoners without charge in poor conditions by both Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.
Letts’s father, John, 57, an organic farmer and botanist, and his mother, Sally, 55, who works in publishing, say they fully accept that if and when their son returns to Britain, he should be detained and questioned, and if the evidence merits it, charged with an offence.
His parents acknowledge that a court might find that merely travelling to ISIS territory constituted a crime, and would test his claims that he did not share the terror group’s aims. In the picture shown here, Letts points with one finger in the air – a pose common among Islamic extremists known as the ‘finger of Tawheed’, and is meant to symbolise the oneness of God. But John said: ‘We’re supposed to be fighting for British values – due process, Magna Carta, the rule of law. How can we square that with letting Jack rot in a Kurdish jail, subject to ill-treatment?’
The Mail on Sunday put questions about Letts’s treatment to four separate PYD institutions, including the Asayish. In response, Sinam Mohamad, its European representative, issued a statement to all media organisations which included the claim that Letts is still in ‘weekly’ contact with his family.
She said that he is being treated in accordance with the Geneva Convention and international human rights standards and that ‘Jack Letts’s parents have been informed and reassured about his wellbeing’.
She said the claims of ill-treatment and torture were ‘baseless’, adding that Jack’s parents were ‘attempting to manipulate the facts and reality’. She said the Kurds were ‘willing to hand over prisoners of war to their original country after [they are] properly investigated’ but also revealed that Britain has not asked the PYD to send Letts home, and neither has Canada. Letts has dual UK/Canadian nationality.
The messages from Letts come amid a political furore sparked by Foreign Office Minister Rory Stewart, who said last week that the only way to deal with former British ISIS fighters ‘will be, in almost every case, to kill them’.
