Jihadi bride Shamima Begum fears she will be EXECUTED when she stands trial for terror offences
JIHADI bride Shamima Begum fears she will be executed after being told she is to stand trial for terror offences.
Sources say the former Brit, 22, is likely to face prosecution after officials ordered a probe into her links to IS.
Allegations against her include that she helped to make suicide bomber vests for IS terrorists.
Begum — whose British citizenship was stripped from her in 2019 — is currently in a refugee camp in Rojava, Syria.
It is a self-governed region not under the control of the Syrian regime.
Friends said the former extremist has little faith in the justice system there — and remains desperate to return to Britain.
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A source said: “Begum has convinced herself she’ll pay the ultimate price if she is tried and found guilty of terrorism offences in Syria.
"She’s very frightened and concerned.
“She’s been told she will be put on trial in Rojava, probably as one of a group of women accused of terrorist offences.
"She hasn’t been given a date yet but has been told it will be in around September or October.
“Rojava authorities don’t advocate the death penalty but that has failed to convince her she won’t escape such a punishment.
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“And even if she does, she’s facing a life jail sentence.”
Begum tried last year to restore her British citizenship.
But she failed in her bid at the Supreme Court to come back to Britain to fight her case in person.
The law allows citizenship to be removed if it is conducive to the public good.
Her lack of citizenship means the British Government will not be able to officially intervene or make diplomatic representations on her behalf — although it is unlikely it would want to anyway.
The source said Begum had been talking to her family in London and that they were getting legal advice.
But it is unclear if a UK-based lawyer would be allowed to represent Begum in court in Rojava.
Rojava investigators are understood to have pored over Begum’s claims she was “not fazed” by seeing heads in bins.
She also told an interviewer she did not regret joining IS.
And security sources have previously claimed she had stitched bombers into their suicide vests.
Begum said she was just a devoted housewife to an IS fighter, focused on raising her three kids — who all died of malnutrition.
Begum — whose parents were born in Bangladesh — quit Bethnal Green, East London, at just 15 for Syria.
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She has told ITV’s Good Morning Britain: “I did not want to hurt anyone. At the time I did not know it (IS) was a death cult.”
Yesterday solicitor Tasnime Akunjee, who has previously acted for Begum, said: “I feel her fears are justified. The justice system there is somewhat meagre.”
