A British-Canadian man nicknamed Jihadi Jack when he escaped to Syria in 2014 has said that he wants to return to Britain, but says he thinks it unlikely he will be allowed back.
Jack Letts, 23, speaking from the Kurdish jail where he has been held for two years on suspicion of joining IS, said he missed his mum, pasties, and Doctor Who.
He told ITV News: “I feel British, I am British.
“If the UK accepted me I would go back to the UK, but I don’t think that’s going to happen.”
Born in Oxford, Letts also has a Canadian passport thanks to his father’s nationality, but admitted: “I don’t know if that will still be valid.”
He told the broadcaster that he had lived on “the Oxford Street of Raqqa”, and married an Iraqi woman who has given birth to the couple’s son.
Letts also confessed that he was pleased when he first heard news of the Paris terror attacks in 2015, and blamed his reaction on his experiences of coalition airstrikes in Raqqa.
He said when asked about the Bataclan atrocities: “At the time, I thought it was a good thing.
“At the time we had this idea, living in Raqqa, getting bombed every five minutes by coalition jets. I’ve seen children burnt alive.
“You have this idea of ‘why shouldn’t it happen to them?’”
But he claimed he has since had a change of heart, and sympathy for the innocent people killed, as he “realised that they had nothing to do with it”.
Letts, who was a teenager when he fled to Syria, has not seen his parents in half a decade, and is missing some elements of his life in the UK.
He added: “I miss people mostly, I miss my mum. Five years I haven’t seen my mum, two years I haven’t spoken to my mum.
“I miss pasties. And Doctor Who.”
Letts’ parents, John Letts and Sally Lane, from Chilswell Road, Oxford, are awaiting trial in the UK accused of sending money to their son.
They have denied three charges of funding terrorism.
His interview comes the day after the family of Islamic State bride Shamima Begum confirmed they would be challenging the Home Office’s decision to revoke the 19-year-old’s British citizenship.
Begum was one of three schoolgirls to leave Bethnal Green to join the terror cult in 2015 and recently gave birth to a baby boy, her third child.
They said in a letter to the Home Secretary on Thursday: “We must, therefore, assist Shamima in challenging your decision to take away the one thing that is her only hope at rehabilitation, her British citizenship.”