ISIS bride Shamima Begum’s husband insists it was HER choice to marry him aged just 15
SHAMIMA Begum's Dutch husband insists it was HER “own choice” to marry him when she was just 15 years old.
ISIS fighter Yago Riedijk – currently held in a Kurdish-run detention centre in northern Syria – said he wants his wife and their newborn son to live as a family in the Netherlands.
Begum, who is now aged 19 and has had three children – two of whom have died in Syria – is reportedly living in a refugee camp near the Iraqi border.
The ISIS bride was only 15 when she ran away from her home in east London to join the terror group in 2015.
They married before she had turned 16 and Riedijk was 23 years old.
The pair are said to have fled Baghouz, the group's last foothold in eastern Syria, as its territory collapsed in recent months.
He said the pair married days after the teenager arrived inside the terror group’s territory from Britain.
ISIS 'REGRETS'
Although Yago Riedijk admitted to fighting for ISIS, he told the broadcaster he is keen to return home to the Netherlands with Begum and their baby son.
Reporter Quentin Somerville asked him: “You were married to her when she was 15 years old; how in any way is that acceptable? You were, what, 23?"
He replied: "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.
"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."
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
Yago Riedijk
Although Riedijk admitted to fighting for ISIS, he told the broadcaster he is keen to return home to the Netherlands – which he abandoned in 2014 to join the terror group – with Begum and their baby son.
In a separate interview with Sky News, he insisted that his wife wasn't dangerous and that the pair had "made a mistake".
He said: "I understand any government's fear of either foreign fighters or their wives.
"But to let a young girl in her position, who has lost her children, who has been through horrors in the Islamic State, be left here to rot in a camp... I don't think that is a very humanitarian decision.
'LIVE WITH THE CONSEQUENCES'
"We made a mistake and we have to live with the consequences. We regret what we did but I hope that our governments and the people back there might consider giving us a second chance.
"I know her very well being my wife for more than three years. I know that she's no danger to anybody whatsoever - she cannot kill a spider, she cannot kill a cockroach.
"But she made a mistake and we'll have to live with the consequences."
I very much regret what I did and that I basically lived a very miserable life in the Islamic State.
Riedijk
He added: "I very much regret what I did and that I basically lived a very miserable life in the Islamic State.
"I want to better myself and hopefully one day return back to life as I was once, create a family.
"Wherever she goes, I'm going to go. If my country wants me then I either take my wife or I stay with her."
He also said he had little involvement in the terrorist group's activities in Syria and had only fought for a "short period of time".
"I did not have direct involvement in... hurting or harming people," he said.
Riedijk, from Arnhem, also said that he had been imprisoned in Raqqa, and tortured after the extremists accused him of being a Dutch spy.
It's reported that while Riedijk is on a terrorism watch list, his Dutch citizenship has not been revoked.
Begum, who said she wants to return to the UK, has been stripped of her British citizenship.
However, she says she should be allowed back to Britain, because her newborn son Jerah is sick, and she won't leave without him, claiming she is "willing to change" her ways while pleading for "mercy" from Britain.
Immigration lawyers have said that Begum could use her son's nationality to accompany him back to Britain.
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