ISIS bride Shamima Begum's jihadi husband Yago Riedijk says he wants them to live in Netherlands with their baby son

The BBC found Islamic Sate fighter Yago Riedijk at a detention centre in Syria
BBC
Hatty Collier3 March 2019

Isis bride Shamima Begum's Dutch husband has said he wants to return to the Netherlands with her and their newborn son to be a family.

Islamic Sate fighter Yago Riedijk, 27, is being held in a Kurdish-run detention centre in northern Syria.

His wife, who is 19 and has had three children, is reportedly living in a refugee camp near the Iraqi border. Ms Begum was 15 when she ran away from her home in east London to join IS in 2015.

They married before she had turned 16 and Riedijk was 23.

Shamima Begum has had her British citizenship revoked

The pair fled Baghouz, the group's last foothold in eastern Syria, as its territory collapsed in recent months.

Riedijk, who claims to have rejected IS, was found in the detention centre by the BBC.

Asked if he thought marrying a girl of that age was acceptable, 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.

"We sat down and she seemed in a good state of mind. It was her own choice, she was the one who asked to look for a partner for her.

Ms Begum with her newborn baby
ITV

"Then I was invited and yeah, she was very young and it might have been better for her to wait a bit. But she didn't, she chose to get married and I chose to marry her."

Ms Begum, who said she wants to return to the UK, has been stripped of her British citizenship.

Riedijk, who ended up in the detention centre after surrendering to Syrian fighters, faces a six-year jail term for joining a terror organisation if he returns to the Netherlands after being convicted in his absence in summer 2018. His Dutch citizenship has not been revoked.

Ms Begum fled to the al-Hawl refugee camp from Baghouz around the same time as Riedijk surrendered to the Syrian fighters but she has since reportedly moved on elsewhere as she feared for her life.

It is said that her recent “fame” had angered a lot of the other wives in the camp and that she was taken to another base in Syria after she was “threatened.”

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