ISIS bride Shamima Begum's husband also banned from the UK and is seen as a national security risk
ISIS bride 19-year-old Shamima Begum's husband has been banned from entering the UK because he reportedly poses a security risk. The 27-year-old jihadist Yago Riedijk from the Netherlands has been put in an exclusion list and is being held currently in a cell in Northern Syria. Home Secretary Sajid Javid imposed the ban only weeks after Begum, who lives in a Syrian refugee camp at the moment, lost her British citizenship.
Riedijk's ban, who was in prison for six years as of last year in his home county of the Netherlands for being a member of a terrorist organization, has been applauded by Conservative MP Philip Hollobone, Daily Mail reported. He told The Sun that it was "very welcome news" and added, "We need to see more of this."
He continued: "There is going to be the threat of thousands of these fighters returning to Europe over the next few months. We have to make it clear they're not welcome in this country."
The couple tied the knot in Syria in 2015 when she was only 15 years old. This was just days after she ran away from her family home in East London. Riedijk and Shamima Begum had three children together but all of them died. The most recent death was three-week-old Jerrah, who was named after a "jihadi warlord".
Begum had begged the British Government sometime last month to be allowed to go back to the UK after she fled the county to Syria in 2015 in order to join ISIS. She also said that she deserved sympathy and should be given a second chance.
Riedijk spoke about how much he loved his wife in an interview with The Times on March 30. He said: "We got very close very quickly. The perfect wife. She was so young and innocent."
MEA WorldWide (MEAWW) previously reported that two British women, 30-year-old Reema Iqbal and 28-year-old Zara Iqbal, have been reportedly stripped of their British citizenship, as they are being held in Syrian camps with their young children.
This case immediately follows that of 19-year-old Londoner Shamima Begum, whose citizenship was revoked on the order of Home Secretary Sajid Javid. As a result of this move, Javid himself has faced increasing criticism, which only grew after the death of Begum's three-week-old son, Jerrah.
Stripping of a person's citizenship is considered legal only if the individual has a second one, and while authorities claim Begum had a Bangladeshi one owing to her family roots, the Bangladeshi officials have denied this. The row over Begum's citizenship continues.
On the other hand, Reema and Zara, too, are mothers to five children between them and all are under the age of eight. The women were widowed after their Portuguese-born husbands, Celso Da Cost and Sadjo Ture, died fighting for the Islamic State. The two sisters, who hail from Canning Town in East London, are said to be living in separate Syrian camps, where thousands of people have been put together in a process to disintegrate the "ISIS caliphate".