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Their defence lawyers called the prosecution an “inhumane” targeting of desperate, loving parents. Prosecutors said the same couple were willfully blind to obvious realities.

On Friday, a U.K. jury sided with the latter view. It found the British-Canadian parents of a suspected ISIL member guilty of funding terrorism over money they wired to Jack Letts, now 23, to try to help him escape a terorrist-held part of Syria.

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The verdict is the latest blow for a couple whose efforts to free their son – dubbed “Jihadi Jack” by the British press and now held in a Kurdish prison – have included lobbying the Canadian government.

But Ontario-born John Letts, 58, and his wife Sally Lane, 57, were spared time in jail, as a judge gave the pair a suspended sentence of 15 months, according to various British media reports. Unless they commit another offence, they will not have to serve the time.

“It was one thing for parents to be optimistic about their children and I do acknowledge he is your son who you love very much,” said Justice Nicholas Hilliard in sentencing them, reported the Independent. “But in this context you did lose sight of realities…. The warning signs were there for you to see.”