Shamima Begum makes ANOTHER plea to be allowed to return to Britain, saying she should be ‘used as an example’ against extremism but admits she expects to spend the rest of her life in Syria
- The 22-year-old was stripped of British citizenship in 2019 after going to Syria
- Now, she says she wants to be ‘used as an example’ to warn against extremism
- She is now living in the Al-Roj prison camp in Syria, where she was captured
- After having her bids to return to Britain to face trial turned down by the Supreme Court, she is now awaiting trial by Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces
ISIS bride Shamima Begum has made a new appeal to be allowed to return to Britain, claiming she could be a ‘voice against radicalisation’.
The 22-year-old was stripped of her British citizenship in 2019 after she travelled to Syria at the age of 15. Now, she says she wants to be ‘used as an example’ to warn other Brits of the dangers of turning to extremism.
Begum, who left the UK in 2015 alongside friends Amira Abase and Kadiza Sultana, is now living in the Al-Roj prison camp in Syria, where she was captured.
ISIS bride Shamima Begum (pictured) has made a new appeal to be allowed to return to the United Kingdom, claiming she could be a ‘voice against radicalisation’
Speaking to iNews from the camp while she awaits a trial by the Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces, she insisted that she wants to be ‘as British as possible’, but conceded that she expects she will spend the rest of her life in Syria.
Begum’s parents were born in Bangladesh. She left school in Bethnal Green, East London to travel to Syria to join the Islamic State.
There, she married an ISIS fighter and gave birth to three children, all of whom died young. Her youngest child died in the prison camp in Syria’s north-east in 2019.
She has made previous attempts to restore her British citizenship, but failed in her Supreme Court bid to return to the UK and fight her case in person.
The Supreme Court ruled on national security grounds that she cannot return to Britain to pursue an appeal against the decision. The law states a person’s citizenship can be stripped if they are deemed to be in the public interest.
Begum’s latest interview was shared with iNews by Andrew Drury and Richard Ashmore. Earlier this month, Drury spoke of how he has formed close bonds with jihadi brides during his time working at the camp.
‘That’s how I feel and that’s what it looks like,’ Begum said on the likelihood of her spending the rest of her life in Syria.
She told Drury and Ashmore that she was aware of how the public perceive her back in the UK, with Drury saying she enjoys her ‘celebrity’ status, iNews said.
The 22-year-old Begum (pictured left in Syria and right when younger) was stripped of her British citizenship in 2019 after she travelled to Syria at the age of 15. Now, she says she wants to be ‘used as an example’ to warn other Brits of the dangers of turning to extremism
Begum’s latest interview was shared with iNews by Andrew Drury and Richard Ashmore. Earlier this month, Drury (pictured with Begum in the camp) spoke of how he has formed close bonds with jihadi brides during his time working at the camp
Begun said: ‘The problem is at the age of being a teenager you’re very arrogant and you don’t listen to people so sometimes you really do have to learn the hard way.
‘I could be used as an example, like you don’t want to end up like her. If it stops children making the same mistake that I made of course use me as an example.
‘Tell the kids “don’t be like her, don’t become like her”.’
She told the interviewers that she was trafficked by ISIS fighters to be a bride, along-side several other British girls who went to Syria. She said that it ‘happened so fast’ – in less than a year, and that she was radicalised online.
When asked how she and two other teenage girls were able to make the journey to Turkey, which cost them £1,000, she said they just told the travel agent they were going on holiday. ‘I’m shocked by how easy it was [to go]. I’m still to this day shocked by how easy it was,’ she said.
Amira Abase and Kadiza Sultana are now believed to be dead.
Begum is among a 50-strong British contingent of women and children at the Al-Roj prison camp in Syria (pictured) which houses around 800 families in total
Begum is among a 50-strong British contingent of women and children at the Syrian encampment, which houses around 800 families in total.
The camp is divided between those prisoners who still believe in the ideology of ISIS and those who claim to have renounced it, like Begum.
The east London schoolgirl dumped her veil more than a year ago and now straightens her dyed hair, paints her nails and wears make-up.
She denies her image change is a publicity stunt.
She has since claimed she was groomed by ISIS and her jihadi husband Yago Riedijk from the Netherlands, who she shared three children with.
Yet after being captured near the Syrian town of Baghuz as ISIS fighters fled, she lamented the group for being ‘weak’.
She also said that the sight of a ‘severed head in a bin didn’t faze me at all’ because it was that of ‘a captured fighter… an enemy of Islam’, defiantly adding: ‘I don’t regret coming here.’
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