The parents of a former British soldier who was arrested in Turkey on suspicion of terrorism offences after he fought against Isis in Syria have insisted their son is innocent.



Joe Robinson, 24, from Accrington, Lancashire, was on holiday in the town of Didim, about 62 miles (100km) north of Bodrum, south-west Turkey, on 22 July when armed police raided the resort in which he was staying with his Bulgarian fiancee and her mother.



After six days of questioning, Turkish authorities released his fiancee, Mira Rojkan, 22, and her mother, but have apparently accused Robinson of “being a member of a terrorist organisation”. It is understood this relates to the time he spent in Syria with Kurdish militia in 2015. But his parents say they have been kept in the dark about his situation.

“I just want information,” his mother, Sharon, 48, told the Guardian on Thursday. “We don’t know if there’s a court date, how he is coping or what he’s actually being charged with. I’ve asked if there’s any way we can get in touch with him but I’ve heard nothing at all. I had no idea about the situation in Turkey and I don’t think Joe did either, otherwise he wouldn’t have gone there on holiday.”

Former British soldier Joe Robinson went to Syria to fight Isis. Photograph: Facebook

Robinson’s father, Andrew, 53, a telecommunications engineer, added: “We can’t get anywhere. I’m ringing Turkey and getting no response. It’s not the Foreign Office’s fault – they’re ringing Turkey and Turkey aren’t telling them anything. He’s only just managed to get an English-speaking solicitor after more than a week in custody.”

A Foreign Office spokesperson said: “We are aware of the detention of a British national in Turkey and have requested consular access.”

Speaking to the Guardian by phone, Rojkan – who remains in Turkey on police bail – said they were arrested as they returned to their hotel after a day at the beach.

“We were still wet and in our towels when about 20 armed plain-clothed police surrounded us and took us inside the house we were staying in,” she said. “They searched the house for more than an hour but found nothing except a water pistol we’d been messing around with the day before.”

She said they confiscated mobile phones, laptops and cameras before taking the trio to a nearby police station for interrogation. “It was just awful. They said someone had sent them an email saying we were terrorists about to do something in Turkey. That is complete rubbish. They said pictures on Facebook of Joe in Kurdish uniform proved he is a terrorist.”



Sharon Robinson, however, insisted her son was “not capable of anything like that”.

“He’s impulsive, he’s crackers, but he’s not that,” she said. “He’s a really good lad. He loves intensely and he cares about other people. That’s why he went to Syria: to help people. I want the Turkish government, or whoever’s responsible for this, to stop saying this stuff about my son. I just want to tell him I love him and I want him home.”

Joe Robinson, pictured with his mother, Sharon, sister Lauren and niece Willow. Photograph: Handout

Robinson, who toured Afghanistan with the Duke of Lancaster’s Regiment in 2012, travelled to Syria in July 2015, telling his family he had gone to join the French Foreign Legion. There, he served for about a month as a combat medic alongside the People’s Protection Units of Syrian Kurdistan (YPG) during one of the bloodiest phases of the war with Isis. He then crossed the border to join the peshmerga, the government-backed army of Iraqi Kurdistan fighting Isis in Iraq, before returning to the UK in November 2015.

But upon landing at Manchester airport, he was arrested by British police on suspicion of terrorism offences. After he had spent 10 months on police bail all charges were dropped.

“When he went to Afghanistan it was hard, like for any mother of a soldier,” his mother said. “Then he went to Syria, came home, and was arrested here. When those charges were dropped I finally thought it was over and I wouldn’t have to worry about him any more. And now this. I feel detached, like I’m on tranquilisers, but I’m not.”

Membership of the YPG is illegal in Turkey. The Turkish government has long argued that the militia is a terrorist organisation affiliated with the Kurdistan Workers’ party (PKK), which has waged an insurgency against the Turkish state for decades. The YPG is not a proscribed terrorist group in the UK and is supported in its fight against Isis by the US military.

“As far as I know he didn’t pull a trigger during his time in Syria,” said Robinson’s YPG commander, Botan English, a Briton who asked to be known only by his Kurdish nom de guerre. “His combat medical experience from his time in the British army made him more useful treating the injured.”

English said he remembered the aftermath of an IED explosion in the liberated town of Sarrin, northern Syria, in July 2015. “Civilians were being moved out of the town and this father, with his son and daughter, stepped on a landmine. His leg was hanging off and his kids, who must have been about three and five, were badly injured. Joe was the only person on the scene with medical training and he tied up the man’s leg and treated the kids’ wounds before an ambulance arrived to take them to hospital. I’m sure they wouldn’t have made it if it hadn’t been for Joe.”

Robinson has said he travelled to Syria after becoming increasingly incensed by both Isis’s gory propaganda videos and what he saw as Britain’s inaction in Syria.

After his earlier release he told the Guardian: “I’m just happy that the restrictions placed on me have been dropped and that I can finally move on with my life.”

• This article was amended on 14 August 2017 to remove a reference to a solicitor named Kaya Kayaoglu speaking to the BBC in relation to Robinson. Kayaoglu contacted us to say he does not represent Robinson.