Shamima Begum's husband wishes to return to Netherlands and live a 'normal life with his wife' after serving jail time
Shamima Begum's husband, ISIS fighter Yago Riedijk, has confessed that he wants to return to a "normal life" after serving his time in prison. The 27-year-old got married to Begum when she was only 15-years-old after the pair was introduced to the Islamic State. He is now in a detention facility in Northern Syria and he faces a six-year jail term in the Netherlands for joining a terrorist organization. The Dutch national converted to Islam when he fell in love with a Muslim girl at school and went to Syria in October 2014.
There he met 15-year-old Begum who had fled to Syria with two other girls from London. The couple married and had three children but all of them died. His wife, Begum, has been stripped of her London citizenship despite her repeated pleas to be allowed to return to the UK. Yago has now been claiming that both he and his wife were "naive victims" of the ISIS and called for authorities to forgive them both.
He told the Times, "I wish to return home, spend the due time in jail, then go back to normal life with my wife, with no troubles, no wars, and no poverty. Just to live. For me, I recognized what wrong I did and I knew Isis reality. I feel regret, I want to go back to my normal life and improve myself. I would never go back to such error."
In the recent interview, he has given out several previously unknown facts about him and his wife, as he stated that his parents were from Netherlands and Indonesia, while he himself was raised as a Dutch national. He stated that he trained as a blacksmith and came across ISIS through Twitter. He was later smuggled into Syria from Turkey, along with few other men from Indonesia and Bosnia.
Yago was imprisoned by the ISIS for seven months on suspicion of spying for the Netherlands. He said he was tortured in jail and after his release was sent back to the front line in Syria to fight for the terror regime. Regarding the death of all his three children he claimed, "Me and her, we loved them so much. It’s a nightmare. It’s the worst thing that could ever happen." The pair now regret their decision of joining ISIS in the first place. Begum's family is appealing against the Home Office's decision to ban her from the UK, while Netherlands had claimed that Begum is no longer welcome in their country.
Begum who had run away from home in Bethnal Green East London to join the terror group in 2015 had used her sister's passport to flee to Turkey with her friends and within weeks of arriving in the Islamic State married Yago, who had found it quite easy to fall in love with her. He said, "We got very close very quickly. The perfect wife. She was so young and innocent. It was very easy for me to love her."
As for Begum, she has accepted the fact that she would have to stay in the camp for a very long time, as she mentioned, "I have sat down and thought about how long I would have to stay here. And I have kind of accepted that I will have to stay here, I will have to make this like a second home."