Shamima Begum's jihadi husband – the man she left the UK for when she and two other east London schoolgirls travelled to Syria to join Daesh* - has refused to condemn the terrorist group’s trademark beheadings, the Daily Mail reports.
In an interview given from Kurdish-run al-Roj prison in northern Syria, where the convicted terrorist and extremist from the Netherlands is currently incarcerated, Yago Riedijk, 29, raved about the couple's “beautiful” former life.
In this still taken from CCTV issued by the Metropolitan Police in London on Feb. 23, 2015, 15-year-old Amira Abase, left, Kadiza Sultana,16, center, and Shamima Begum, 15, walk through Gatwick airport, south of London, before catching their flight to Turkey on Tuesday Feb 17, 2015
© AP Photo / Metropolitan Police
“There were some nice days with my wife and kids at home. Some beautiful memories," he said.
He also reminisced how they would bake cakes as a family to make money while Begum was pregnant with their second son Jalah.
Riedijk left Arnhem, Holland, for Syria in October 2014. The Muslim convert married Shamima Begum in 2015, just days after the 15-year-old arrived in Syria. Riedijk revealed that the two of them had agreed on one condition before they wed.
“It was not really anything big. Small things like going out shopping - stuff like this. She asked for some freedoms which I agreed to give her. Going shopping, seeing friends. Basic stuff,” he said.
According to the man, he had agreed to Begum’s request of a dowry in the form of an English translation of the Quran. Yago Riedijk added that while living in the caliphate, he contacted his family back home in the Netherlands more often than Begum spoke to hers in the UK. The couple had three children together, all of whom have died.
The husband of the since-denaturalised British-born woman claimed attacks on the West were not “Islamicly responsible”, as they resulted in the deaths of innocent people – something that is “prohibited in Islam”.
In the interview for Alan Duncan, a former Scots soldier who is making a documentary on Daesh, Riedijk stopped short of condemning the extremist group's violence against Yazidi women, who were sold under the terrorists' de facto regime as sex slaves.
When asked to comment on the trademark Daesh beheadings as well as attacks on other Muslims, the convicted terrorist responded by saying “I can't really comment”.
Riedijk also refused to comment on how Begum viewed the horrific executions and punishments. He described seeing corpses left on the street as an example for others as “not a pleasant picture”.
Furthermore, weighing in on the future of Daesh, the 29-year-old expressed the hope that the group was not finished and would witness creation of a caliphate which adheres to “Islamic traditions”.
During a 2019 interview with The Times, Shamima Begum had said that the last time she saw her husband was when they fled the village of Baghuz, at the beginning of February that year. Riedijk surrendered to a group of fighters allied to the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). He was convicted in a Netherlands court in 2018 for joining the extremist group.
While Begum was taken to the al-Hawl refugee camp, Riedijk has been incarcerated at Roj - one of several detention camps in northeast Syria.
Stripped of her citizenship in February 2019, Begum has waged a battle to return to the UK, however in February 2021 the UK Supreme Court ruled she had lost her case. Lord Reed, president of the court, said it ruled in favour of then-Home Secretary Sajid Javid and against Begum on all counts. “The supreme court unanimously allows the home secretary’s appeals and dismisses Ms Begum’s cross-appeal,” Reed said.
Yago Riedijk insisted in the interview cited by the Daily Mail that he hopes to one day reunite with Shamima Begum and “start a family again.”
* a terrorist organisation banned in many countries, including Russia.