Biodun.BBC: BREAKING: Shamima Begum: 'We should live in Holland' says IS husband

Saturday, March 2, 2019

Media captionYago Riedijk said he saw nothing wrong in marrying 15-year-old Shamima Begum.

by Nasra Ismail and Biodun Iginla, BBC News, Beirut

The Dutch husband of Shamima Begum, who joined the Islamic State group in Syria in 2015 aged 15, has said he wants her to return to the Netherlands with him.

Yago Riedijk and Ms Begum married days after she arrived inside IS territory.

Speaking to us at the BBC, he admitted fighting for the group but says he now wants to return home with his wife and their newborn son.

Mr Riedijk, 27, is being held in a Kurdish detention centre in north-eastern Syria.

He faces a six-year jail term for joining a terror organisation if he returns the Netherlands.

In an interview with the BBC's Middle East correspondent, Quentin Sommerville, Mr Riedijk said he rejects IS and claims he tried to leave the group.

He told our correspondent that he was imprisoned in Raqqa and tortured after the extremists accused him of being a Dutch spy.

Ms Begum, now aged 19, and her IS fighter husband, escaped from the town of Baghouz, the group's last territory in eastern Syria, as the caliphate crumbled.

Mr Riedijk surrendered to a group of Syrian fighters and Ms Begum and their newborn son, Jarrah, ended up among 39,000 people in the al-Hawl refugee camp in northern Syria.

She has now reportedly gone elsewhere.

CCTV of Shamima Begum at Gatwick Airport in February 2015 — Image captionMs Begum pictured on CCTV at Gatwick Airport in February 2015

Mr Riedijk also told us at the BBC that he saw nothing wrong with marrying Ms Begum - 15 at the time, while he was 23 - because it was "her choice".

Describing how he met the schoolgirl from east London in the women's centre in Raqqa, he said he was initially not interested because she was too young.

He said: "To be honest, when my friend came and said there was a girl who was interested in marriage, I wasn't that interested because of her age, but I accepted the offer anyway."

He added that she had seemed to be "in a good state of mind".

Mr Riedijk, from Arnhem in the Netherlands, insisted: "It was her own choice. She asked to look for a partner for her, and I was invited."

He conceded "she was very young, maybe it would have been better for her to wait a bit", before adding: "But she didn't, she chose to get married and I chose to marry her."

Image captionShamima Begum left her home in Bethnal Green to join the Islamic State group aged 15

The UK has revoked Ms Begum's citizenship on the grounds that she is eligible for citizenship of Bangladesh through her mother, who is a Bangladeshi citizen.

But Bangladesh's ministry of foreign affairs has said Ms Begum is not a Bangladeshi citizen and that she will not be allowed into the country.

Although Riedijk is on a terrorism watch list, his Dutch citizenship has not been revoked.