Void and no deal Brecht's it from the European Union and that eventually some sort of a deal will be struck but analysts warn the next few days are critical world news from the b.b.c. The leader of the Green Party in Switzerland has welcomed the huge gains it's made in parliamentary elections regular It said the results represented a tectonic shift the greens together with another environmentalist party the Green liberals more than doubled the number of seats in the National Council with concerns about climate change a key election issue the right wing Swiss People's Party lost ground but remains the largest party with more than 25 percent of the votes Lebanon's coalition government is reported to have agreed on wide ranging economic reforms after the biggest protests in decades the proposals involve privatizing some companies scrapping new taxes and hardening the salaries of top officials hundreds of thousands of demonstrators angry about falling living standards and high unemployment filled the center of Beirut and other cities on Sunday for the 4th day running. Experts from Britain and the United States a teaming up to find ways to detect cancer at the earliest possible stage they hope it will give patients a much higher chance of survival Philippa Roxby reports scientists say they want to find the moment healthy cells turn cancerous and see the actual birth of the disease this could help detect cancers earlier and improve survival but at present they see research is lacking and too many people are being diagnosed with advanced cancer the scientists planned share ideas on the most promising and least invasive tests for cancer and then pool resources to trial them in large populations of people but there are still many hurdles to overcome it could be 30 years before any new techniques come to fruition and footage of the Tanzanian president John Magaw Furley delivering a speech has been shown on television following speculation about his health social media had been rife with rumors that the president might be seriously ill or possibly even undergoing treatment abroad after he was not seen in public for several days. And that's the latest b.b.c. News. Welcome to talk on the b.b.c. World Service with me Stephen Sackur my guest today are parents who've lived through years of anguish and heartache as a result of decisions taken by their eldest son Sally lane and John Lentz raised their family in a comfortable liberal household in Oxford then and their eldest Jack took a path which has led the family to a dark place Jack a bright teenager with some mental health issues converted to Islam he became increasingly politically radicalized in 2014 his parents agreed to let him go travelling in the Middle East by the end of that year he'd moved to the so-called Islamic State caliphate in Syria he married an Iraqi woman and had a child but by later 2015 his sporadic messages home suggested he was disillusioned with the militant life his parents sent him money and tried to send more hoping he would leave but he ended up captured and imprisoned by Kurdish forces in northern Syria the very forces who are today trying to fight off an invasion by the Turkish military Jack has had his British citizenship revoked his parents have been convicted under Britain's anti terror laws for sending in money and the future is deeply uncertain what will what should happen to Jack let's Well Sally Lane And John let's join me in that welcome to talk you are in a very difficult situation right now because your son Jack is as far as we know imprisoned held by Kurdish forces in northern Syria those forces currently under attack from the me what is the latest information you have about what is happening to your son well we're having to rely on journalist reports of what's happening in the region and. Foreign prison there and so it's a town in northeast and you know it's in Syria and there are 2 new prisons there. And is now one is our 2nd block is in 2nd is there any avenue you can get information through about Jack I mean can you contact for example British government officials or Canadian government officials because you John are Canadian citizen and therefore Jack has dual citizenship or at least he did until the British citizenship was revoked No all we get back is we have limited consular access in Syria and we know nothing and I don't say we don't nothing that's all they say and same with the British side so no it informs us of anything so the only thing we can rely on is social media or journalists on the ground you know there have been reports that he's been taken by the Americans to Iraq there are reports of all sorts of things but we just have no idea as you say rumors did swirl that the Americans attempted to take several prisoners we know they took to the so-called 2 British citizens known as The Beatles who were high profile. Terrorists do not know if they tried to take your son Jack with them as they left others the u.s. Forces I think that term high profile is the important one I mean there are high profile jihadi fighters and there's seems to be evidence just you know for some of them obviously maybe the Beatles but I think Jack is high profile but not necessarily a high profile Jehad the fighter because he was never a fighter what is this doing to your own mental state at this moment as you haven't had any direct contact as I understand it with Jack even through the Red Cross for several months well I mean this is one of the most dangerous times that Jack has faced when we've been trying to keep him alive for the past 5 years and there are points during that time that have been worse than others when he was trying to get out of Rocca when we were trying to send him money so that he could get out of there aka when he went into hiding this has been a very long process but this moment now where he's being besieged by also. Sides and faces danger from all different areas from their regime from hard core is a missed fight is the possibility of what could happen if the if the Turks come in where the prisoners might be sent away where obviously frantic it's difficult to focus on anything to be honest it's your child and you believe he's innocent so it's difficult to have a good night's sleep in a warm bed or eat a nice meal you don't sleep and we're both you know extremely stressed it's destroyed our family really and also it's destroyed our finances and everything else you just said something that I need to pick up on you just said our child we believe he's innocent after all of these 5 years of stress agony and anguish Have you not come to terms with the fact that your son Jack voluntarily signed up and joined Islamic state the so-called Islamic State movement which we know is responsible for so much violence in the Middle East and far beyond the Middle East if that was true I would have no problems I'm not a father in denial if Jack has done anything wrong he should pay the price he should be tried and punished for that I don't have a problem with that I have no sympathies for what extremists of any type of done but we have as far as we're concerned Jack never joined ISIS You say he signed up and joined the Caliphate that's just not true where is the evidence for that please show me something that proves that and the only thing that ever that can be used to prove that is the interview he did a few interviews he did more recently last year but for 4 years before that the media created this narrative to say he ran off joint I says you know joined up with the Caliphate and participated in these atrocities is just not true we don't believe that that's the case if it was the case I would not be here defending him you say you're not in denial but there is circumstantial evidence and then there are the words from Jack's own Miles. Which tell us that he was in Islamic state even during our court case where we were prosecuted for having sent money to Jack to escape from Syria to pay people smugglers there was a court instruction that made a distinction between being in territory was and being a member of ISIS that was an instruction to the jury that there is a distinction between the 2 and yes Jack freely admitted to us that he was in territory but always said that he was never a member of ISIS and he has maintained that right from the start and even in the court case it was a 5 year forensic investigation thousands of messages between Jack and us. Because he kept in constant contact with us not one message in their proof that he was ever a member Well let us go through perhaps some of the messages then we can talk about what Jack himself has said in various media interviews but if one looks at the timeline there are different moments in the course of 2015 when it surely became obvious to you that he was a full paid up member of Islamic state and their mindset one looks at the Facebook post from July 2015 in which he talks about his knowledge that a former school friend of his that signed up with the British army and there was a picture on social media all of this friend in uniform I believe on a training course and Jack wrote I would love to perform a martyr operation in this scene he said that he would cut off his former friends head if that friend ever came to the region in which Jack was living and how is anyone ever going to defend such a barbaric statement but the fact is we don't believe those messages were from Jack our version of those messages our defense to that in the court case was never reported all the media has ever reported is the prosecution case I don't believe that was as Jack had. And over his Facebook password account early on what about the picture if you look at the year of Jack at the top we're going to answer the 1st question 1st so you know I was like I can't prove obviously all sitting here I can't pronounce the point isn't it on Facebook anybody can hack Facebook accounts you can use passwords and everyone who went inside the territory he was inside the territory I agree had to hand over it is his password and he says those messages are not his and if you look at the English of a lot of those messages I don't think it is as for the photograph that little mystically that with our audience that photograph Jack unless you're denying it's Jack at the dam which was liberated by force by Islamic state fighters and it appears Jack was there and he was giving a salute which indicated he was fully supportive although I'm excited that as well he was certainly there and as I say once he has territory you couldn't leave so I have no doubt he's inside that territory he's a Muslim and he was inside ISIS territory that's what he's certainly guilty of and to many people that's enough to make you guilty of all sorts of things the salute is the we that is the symbol of Islam it's the unity of Islam I'm not a Muslim I don't understand all the philosophy but it's a symbol of the unity of Islam it's co-opted by ISIS people and his trousers in he's wearing I bought them they're not can't combat trousers has a different t. Shirt on but I don't believe that that photo is enough to say he's a paid up signed up member of the Caliphate Well I can't ask him about these things or you just should know able to answer these questions himself one question goes even further back when he had converted to Islam and clearly was becoming more and more radicalized the mixing of more radical term already well I'll finish the question then you can tell me why it's problematic for you it seems I understand that you were advised by a friend of his from the mosque he was attending in Oxford that he was mixing in dangerous company and that you should confiscate his passport because it would be very bad if he were able. To get himself to the Middle East with respect this has all been gone through with a fine tooth comb in our court case and it was very well publicized that that's not the situation we're in now should be able to answer these questions himself in a trial I mean there was a proxy trial for him through us so we were asked these questions in exhaustive detail now we're in a situation where the prisoners have been held in a legal limbo the government has just washed its hands of them and that issue is what has triggered at the Turkish invasion and the whole realignment of the Middle East all over again it was this very issue of prisoners not being taken aback by their governments and not being given a fair trial and people just pretending that the problem didn't exist because we have heard Jack the voice in recent months he has been interviewed on television for the b.b.c. By i.t.v. By Sky News he has said and I'm going to quote him directly Jack saying I am not going to say I'm innocent I am not innocent I deserve what comes to me to the b.b.c. He said I know I was definitely an enemy of Britain in the course of one interview he said he had considered the possibility of being a suicide bomber these are things that came from Jack's mouth I have also read parts of the transcript of that edited interview where he denies being a traitor to Britain I mean look at the context in which that's happening as a Jew you know from a journalistic from a perspective so he's being held by non-state actors he's brought into a room by men wearing balaclavas in a pistol we know he's been tortured he was tortured by ISIS initially 3 times he was put on trial by ISIS in Mosul for having opposed them then he's picked up by the Kurds he's treated fairly well at the beginning because they thought he was a bit of a hero who'd worked against ISIS then as soon as the British government gets involved he goes in. Absolute silence so they lock him up we know he's been interrogated 15 times by the British and the Americans but also the Kurds but there are things that happen there we know he's had he's mentioned electricity he's locked in a cage he doesn't see the light for ages Red Cross can't access and he can't speak to his family can't speak to a lawyer and then all of a sudden this cell door opens up they carry him to a room and they stick a camera in front of his face with someone says Are you a traitor or a collaborator and I think that that's the duress. I can't speak for all of the interviews the b.b.c. Interview was conducted by a very experienced correspondent who followed all of the guidelines and it was clear to him that this was not an interview conducted under duress let's wanted to speak to our correspondent you say you are not in denial but when I read those quotes to you and you told me that you do not believe you were ever affiliated with a member it does sound like you are and what I'm trying to do is sketch the context that if you ask someone who's been a prisoner for 3 years who's been treated really badly in all a situation you say are you being are you under duress would you like to answer questions how do you know what has been said to him before or after that interview and by the way a human rights lawyer a very well respected name Clive Stafford Smith who everyone knows who worked a lot in Guantanamo went in is the only person who's spoken to Jack directly in semi private and he says Jack Jack was never made he believes Jack was never a member of ISIS never fought and has been tortured that how do you know what has happened to him in that cell he doesn't have access to a lawyer and everyone here believes they have a right that you shouldn't speak you know if you're being interviewed interrogated is what it is you should have access to legal advice Jack doesn't have anything like that how do you know that what they said to him they might have said to him We have your wife next door and we're going to treat her really badly if you don't answer these questions properly and admit that you're a member of ISIS How do you know until you get him here everyone has a right to a fair trial I thought that was the cornerstone. Democracy in the cornerstone of our system you know we should bring people back and give them the right to defend themselves I'm not going to happen though is that it became clearly the son of the British government had revoked Jack's British citizenship and there's no way they're looking at appeal as well and that leaves him only Canadian and you know Canada has a democratic system too I trust that system very well I think that he would receive fair justice in Canada I'd like to think he would receive justice here but given the way the media has slanted this narrative all of these years they've created this myth called you how do you Jack every time they mention the word jihad and Jack it's another nail in his coffin it's another nail that people are convinced that he's guilty when no evidence is presented just a photograph you just said which I think is to symbol of Islam there is the Facebook messages that we think are not his and if you look at the English he does not write English that way and there's the interviews which I believe are conducted under duress you have no idea what's happening in those jail cells and I think torture happens throughout jail cells in the Middle East so to me there is no evidence that solid if there is and you say about Dinoire I don't believe I'm in denial I will be the 1st to stand up and condemn him if you show me some serious evidence you've also had to live with the reality of a criminal prosecution brought against your souls which culminated in the summer of this year with you being found guilty convicted of one charge on the terrorism was what impact is that conviction had upon you both we were found not guilty on substantial charges of sending money to escape Syria that's been under reported in the us there were 3 charges ranging all sending money to Jack. Know the well me one found money was sent successfully to jack a believe the figure was about $233.00 Jackie he was sent to a poor family in Lebanon yes but it was for Jack Well it was going to meet you actually wasn't from my perspective no it wasn't it was there was a there was a thought that some of it might get to get him a. It was actually to support the poor family in Lebanon as well and that charge happened in September and initially the police ignored that and only added that to a charge sheet later the 2 substandard charges a Saudi just said we're sending money to Jack to help him escape from Syria that's the only reason we were sent and I just I guess the point that seems to me at the center of the case against you was that you were warned repeatedly by the police I think going back to March of 2015 not to send money that could be ending up in Jack sands because you would have no way of knowing whether then it would out be added to the coffers of a terrorist organization didn't well known Interestingly enough the 1st time I saw they were found guilty of. I was interviewed for that voluntarily after the payment was made and the police officer interviewing me said I wasn't going to be arrested he said you're not a criminal Sadly that was the end of it but it was only added on later after we sent the money for that I was added on to the charge sheet another so. I guess the central point here that everybody has to get around is that you were given a trial and you were convicted you were convicted on this count of entering into a funding arrangement for the purposes of terrorism that contravene the 2000 terrorism act in the u.k. And the judge in sentencing said it was not dogmatic He said it was one thing that parents be optimistic about the children I acknowledge that this is a son you love very much but in the context you lost sight of realities and the warning signs were there for you to see now with some distance from that trial can you accept the judge's right there were warning signs there for you to see you ignore them. Sorry I still think I think you know the charge was there were reasonable under the Terrorism Act in the u.k. The eviden