Misleading statement on duration of review process and withdrawal of under-review article We submitted an article to a SCI Elsevier journal. The Elsevier website has clearly mentioned that submission to first decision takes 4.5 weeks, submission to 
final decision takes 4.7 weeks and acceptance to citable online takes 7.2 weeks. After 60 days of submission I sent an inquiry email and editor replied just one line that the review process will take at least 1 year. I selected this journal based on IF, Q factor and most importantly the review process was quick. After hearing editor's response I decided to withdraw the article and submit it to other fast track journal. 


Is it a valid reason to withdraw the under review article (as the wrong information was conveyed by the journal)?
Any suggestion how should I compose my email for withdrawal? 
Is it possible the editor might refuse the withdrawal request?
You may withdraw your paper at any point (unless copyright has been transfered). Is this case this even seems like a good option. Although the numbers on review time on the homepage are averages, I find it highly disturbing that the editor gives such a large estimate that early. How can he know the he will need more than 10 month from now to form his decision? If he has some reason to believe so, shouldn't he try to keep review times short if his journal advertises short review times? Many reputed journals I know work hard, publisher and editorial board together, to keep their review times as small as possible, and here seems to be one editor who doesn't care. 

To answer the questions: Yes you can withdraw at any time of the review process. Such an estimate of the review time is a valid reason. To withdraw your paper you just write an email to the handling editor stating that you withdraw the paper. You do not have to give specific reasons and you may resubmit the paper somewhere else right away. The editor can not refuse the request as (usually) nothing has been signed which prohibits withdrawal.