Federal government appealing court order to repatriate 4 Canadian men detained in Syria

The federal government is appealing a Federal Court ruling that ordered the government to repatriate four Canadian men being detained in northeastern Syria in prisons for suspected ISIS members.

In its notice to the Federal Court of Appeal, the government asks that the court order be stayed pending the appeal.

The Canadian men — who have not been charged with crimes — are currently in prisons run by Kurdish forces in Northern Syria and are being detained for alleged ISIS ties. The Canadian government has listed ISIS as a terrorist group.

In his ruling last month, Federal Court Justice Henry Brown said that the four men had a right to return to Canada under S. 6(1) of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The section says that "every citizen of Canada has the right to enter, remain in and leave Canada."

But in its notice of appeal, the government argues that Brown erred in his interpretation the right to enter Canada under S. 6(1).

"The court has effectively created a right to be returned," the notice appeal reads.

In his ruling, Brown directed Ottawa to request repatriation of the men as soon as reasonably possible and provide them with passports or emergency travel documents.

Brown said the men are also entitled to have a representative of the federal government travel to Syria to help facilitate their release once their captors agree to hand them over.

Prior to the Federal Court's decision, the federal government made a deal to repatriate 19 women and children from detention camps in northeastern Syria. The court's ruling only applied to the four men.

Jack Letts, who has been imprisoned in Syria for more than four years, is one of the four men.

Letts admitted in a 2019 interview to joining ISIS in Syria and called it the "stupidest thing he's ever done," according to an interview with U.K.-based ITV News. His family says he made that admission under duress. His family also has said he was imprisoned by ISIS three times and since 2014 has denied being part of the terror group.

Letts was a British-Canadian dual citizen before his British citizenship was revoked three years ago. 

Barbara Jackman, the lawyer representing Letts' family, told CBC News last month that his family hasn't spoken to him in years and doesn't know what his condition is.

Appeal a 'cruel delay tactic': Jack Letts' mother

In a statement sent to CBC News, Sally Lane, Jack Letts' mother, said the government is using the appeal to stall.

"This appeal is a cruel delay tactic based on clearly frivolous arguments that were soundly dismissed in the original court decision," she said.

"Canada is just prolonging my son's torture and that of the other male detainees and once again [is] showing itself to act just like the rogue states it condemns when they violate international law."

The notice of appeal says the situation in the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES) — the  Kurdish-controlled region which administers the prisons — is "dangerous to all concerned (including the detained respondents and employees of the Government of Canada), violent, variable and far from assured or constant."

Lane questioned that assertion.

"For the Canadian government to argue that it is too difficult to repatriate my son when Canada is in the exact same region repatriating the women and children defies logic, as well as every human rights commitment this country has ever made," she said.

"Canada has always had the capacity to do this."

The identities and circumstances of the three other Canadian men have not been made public.

Lawyer Lawrence Greenspon, who represents those three men, said he was disappointed but not surprised by the federal decision to appeal Brown's judgment.

"I look forward to defending a courageous, compelling and comprehensive judgment," Greenspon told the Canadian Press.

Greenspon said Friday that repatriation efforts for the women and children are still expected to go ahead.

"Thank goodness we made the deal for the women and children," he said, suggesting their return to Canada might otherwise have been held up.

Matthew Behrens, an activist who is petitioning the government to repatriate Canadians from Syria, said in an email to CBC that Letts' family last heard from him through a September 2021 Red Cross letter to Lane, in which he urged her not to give up.