Dad of freed Joshua says: 'As parents we felt very scared'
THE family of a young Irishman who was detained in an Iraqi prison after fighting Isis have expressed their delight as at his release.
Joshua Molloy, who went to Ardscoil na Trionoide school in Athy, spent Saturday night in a hotel in the northern Iraqi city of Erbil after his nightmare ordeal came to an end.
He said: "We have been walking a tightrope for the last week and a half when we heard news that he had been arrested when he crossed the border. But this morning here in our house we are delighted.
"We finally got word through the London office that he was in a hotel now in Erbil and out of the jail," Mr Molloy told RTÉ yesterday.
"We are jumping with joy to know that he is out,' he said. 'You know that Christmas morning feeling, it's a bit like that, when you find your most sought-after present under the tree, the dream present. That's how we feel.' His worried mother had received a phonecall from her son while he was being held captive in the prison. During the brief and emotional call, he told his mother to try not to 'worry'.
He made the call after he was visited by the Irish Mail on Sunday last week. He said he was held in a cell with up to 50 other people.
The Co. Laois native was jailed for crossing the border illegally from Syria after fighting Isis. Joshua, who went to school in Athy, Co. Kildare, was a trained British soldier and joined the Royal Irish Regiment in 2011.
He was jailed along with two British citizens. British diplomats based in Iraq spent the last week trying to secure his freedom along with Jac Holmes, a former IT worker from Bournemouth, and Joe Ackerman, a former British soldier from Halifax. It is not clear when Mr Molloy will return home.
Parents Declan and Anne Marie. Pic: Daily Mail.
It has been indicated that he may spend time with friends in Europe before returning to his parents. Mr Molloy said: 'It will only be a case now of organising flights and deciding where he wants to go.
"He may not come immediately back to Ireland. He may be visiting a friend on route."
His father was keen to emphasise that his son did not travel to the region to be a mercenary, rather to be 'a volunteer to help any way that he could'.
He said: "As parents we felt very scared. And we also felt a small amount of pride that he felt strongly enough about a cause that he wanted to do something. Obviously as parents you are terrified but at the same time he watched TV like the rest of us and saw the humanitarian crisis growing there.'
During a meeting with the Irish Mail on Sunday last week, Joshua Molloy appeared thin and exhausted but said he had not been physically assaulted. He remarked: 'I've been kept in a cell with lots of other people. It's a cage.'
He added: "We knew we could get arrested. We knew that people had been put in prison crossing in, that's why we called the consulate beforehand.'
The young soldier insisted that he flew to the region after reading 'what the Kurds were doing, fighting to protect innocent people in that face of Isis'.