'Jihadi Jack,' stripped of U.K. citizenship, now hopes to come to Canada

Jack Letts, dubbed Jihadi Jackby the media after beingaccused of travelling to Syria to fight for ISIS, said he's not surprised Britain stripped him of hiscitizenship,and that he hopesto return to Canada.

"I've always felt I'm a mix. And I've been to Canada seventimes and I spent a lot of time in Canada,"Letts, 24, saidin an exclusive interview with the U.K.-basedITV News that was published Monday."My whole family's Canadian.

"I always expected Canada to help me and they didn't. I hope Canada does take me from here if they can."

On the weekend, Canada's Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodaleacknowledged reports that Letts, who grew up in Oxford, U.K., had his citizenship revoked, leaving him with just Canadian citizenship. "Canada is disappointed that the United Kingdom has taken this unilateral action to offload their responsibilities," the minister said in a statement.

Letts's recent comments are a reversal from what he told ITV News in February, whenhe said he was not seeking to return to Canada.

"I feel British, I am British. My dad's Canadian," he said at the time."If the U.K. accepted me, I would go back to the U.K., it's my home, but I don't think that is going to happen."

In prison for 2 years

Letts, who is being held in a prison inQamishliin northern Syria along the Turkish border, said he didn't know Britain had revoked his citizenship until he was informed by ITV News.

"I'm not surprised. I was expecting somethinglike this, to be honest," he told ITV News this week. "I've been here for two and a half years. They haven't helped me at all, the British government. Even if theydidn't strip me of my British citizenship, it's almost as if I'm not a British citizen anyway."

Asked on Monday about whether Letts would be allowed to come toCanada, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau wouldn't answer,saying onlythat the government continues to recognize it's a crime to travel for the purpose of engaging in terrorist activities.

Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer saidLetts should remain locked up and his party wouldn't intervene if it wins the October federal election.

"Jihadi Jack is in prison now and that is where he should stay," Scheer said Monday in a statement. "A Conservative government under my leadership will not lift a finger to bring him back to Canada."

According to Letts's father John Letts, who is from southern Ontario but lives in Oxford,the Kurds expressed willingness last year to hand his son over to Canadian authorities. He has also said Global Affairs Canada told the family for months that it was working to get Jack released, butthe department then decided it was too dangerous.

Jack became a Muslim convert andtravelledto Syria in 2014 to join fighters with the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. He was captured by the Kurdish YPG militiaafter escaping the extremist group's de facto capital, Raqqa, before it fell.

'Never killed anyone'

Letts told ITVNews this week that he's not a murderer or torturer, just a person who made a stupid mistake, and going to Syria "was probably the stupidest thing I've ever done.

Ionly ever fought the Syrian regime which killed more than a million Syrians- Jack Letts, known as Jihadi Jack

"I never killed anyone though, and I've never takenanyone a slave. I'venever even hurt anyone in ISIS," he told ITV News. "Ionly ever fought the Syrian regime which killed more than a million Syrians.

"I did it with the wrong people. That's true."

Leah West, alecturer in national security law and counterterrorism,told CBC's News Network on the weekendit's possible Letts could be prosecuted forterrorism offences in Canada. But the case for prosecution faces "hurdles"because Lettsoriginally travelled from Britain not Canada, said West, who's at the Norman Paterson School of International Affairs at Carleton University in Ottawa.

"There's crimes in the Criminal Code for leaving Canada to facilitate terrorist activity or to commit offences on behalf of a terrorist organization. Letts doesn't fall within that category. He's not susceptible to prosecution for this offence because he did not leave Canada in order to do that."