'Jihadi Jack' charged with being IS member, Kurdish officials say - BBC News
A 21-year-old man from Oxford has been charged with being a member of so-called Islamic State, officials from the Kurdish region of Syria have said.
Jack Letts, dubbed "Jihadi Jack", travelled to Syria in 2014 and was later captured by the Kurdish-led YPG - the group fighting against IS - when he left IS territory.
Officials told the BBC Mr Letts had been captured in May 2017.
Mr Letts has previously said he opposes IS.
A statement given to the BBC from the Democratic Federation of Northern Syria (DFNS) - a self-declared autonomous region - said Mr Letts had been taken to a prison in Qamishli, northern Syria.
It said the case was still under investigation by the local police force, the Asayish.
It is the first time Kurdish forces have confirmed the capture of Mr Letts as a prisoner of war.
Petition
Mr Letts converted to Islam while at Cherwell comprehensive school in Oxford.
He travelled to Jordan, aged 18, in 2014, having dropped out of his A-levels. By the autumn of that year he was in IS-controlled territory in Syria.
He married in Iraq and now has a child.
His parents have denied he went to Syria to fight with IS, and started a petition claiming he had "disappeared in a Guantanamo-style black site" in Kurdish-controlled territory.
But Sinam Mohamad, the European representative of DFNS, strongly disputed this.
She told the BBC that its judicial bodies respected international human rights law and were treating Mr Letts in accordance with the Geneva Convention and international human rights standards.
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