Exclusive
JIHADI SCROUNGER
Shamima Begum was paid benefits by ISIS and got twice as much as other jihadis, her fanatic husband boasts
SHAMIMA Begum was a benefits scrounger in the caliphate and received TWICE as much as other jihadis, claims her husband in exclusive footage obtained by The Sun.
The British ISIS bride, 21, fled the UK in 2015 and joined the murderous death cult in Syria where she married Dutch-born Yago Riedijk, 28.
4
Shamima is now being held in a camp in north-east Syria and is attempting to return to the UK via the Supreme Court next week, after the government stripped her of citizenship.
Downing Street has fought tooth and nail to stop her setting foot on British soil after she callously dismissed the Manchester bombing victims in an interview last year amid reports she was a part of the cruel “morality police” in the Islamic State.
Ahead of the explosive case, her husband – jailed in a Kurish-run prison in Syria – has made some explosive revelations about her life in the death cult.
Shamima married Riedijk 10 days after arriving in Syria but the pair were torn apart shortly after when the Dutch militant was jailed by ISIS over allegations he was a western spy.
Yet, while her husband, then aged 23, was being tortured in prison, Shamima, aged just 15, was a benefits scrounger in the caliphate’s capital of Raqqa, Riedijk claims.
He told documentary filmmaker Alan Duncan last month that the ISIS bride received his monthly salary from the terrorist organisation along with her own.
In the exclusive footage, when asked whether ISIS were paying Shamima when he was in jail, he said: “Yes, my friend was getting my wage. Luckily they did give that to her.”
And with the Islamic State collapsing in 2016, he said: “(salaries) they dropped it from $100 to $50 (per month). They would drop it as a couple.”
4
Alan asked: “Both of you get a wage”, to which the extremist replies: “Yes.”
Riedijk, who grew up in the idyllic suburbs of Holland, is one of thousands of western fanatics jailed in northern Syria and desperate to come back to Europe.
The brainwashed militant fought for ISIS in the city of Kobane near the Turkish border, where he was injured, before also fighting in Aleppo.
He told Alan – who battled ISIS for the Kurdish-led Peshmerga – that he would like to be sent back to the Netherlands where he could be jailed for as little as six years for joining the terror group.
The jihadi added: “If I cannot go home, any place with my wife would be my home.
“Start a family again.”
Asked what message he’d send to his wife, he said: “Stay strong, even though it’s very difficult all the things we’ve been through.
“I’d tell her to make use of your time, do whatever you can and learn whatever you can in order to build a future for yourself…for us.
“In terms of taking care of future children, in terms of being a future housewife.”
Riedijk says he was tortured by ISIS soldiers while in prison despite abandoning his life in Europe to serve them.
However, after eight months, he was released after a "review" of his case presumably because the beleaguered terror group needed soldiers.
He returned to his teenage wife Shamima who had miscarried their first child together.
The pair lived in Raqqa together where people were beheaded on the street for disobeying the medieval laws of the Islamic State.
Riedijk even admits he saw a women STONED because she had sex with someone outside of marriage.
And Shamima was no stranger to the horrors of the caliphate.
She told The Times last year that she saw a severed head in a bin and that the gruesome sight “did not faze” her.
Her husband said that walking past dead bodies on the street was “normal” and that seeing decapitated corpses did not shock his brainwashed British wife.
He said: “Sometimes they leave the corpses in the market to scare the people. Sometimes you walk by (them).”
4
When asked if Shamima was shocked by seeing the rotting bodies, he said: “It’s difficult but it’s something you get used to.”
And Alan Duncan was left in no doubt that Riedijk is still a fanatic.
Asked if it was "right or wrong" to have joined ISIS, the extremist said: "I would have never married. I would have never gotten to know my wife if I had joined ISIS.
"I would have never had the enjoyable moments with my children if I hadn't joined ISIS."
He calls himself "young" and naive" when he took part in the civil war of another country, adding: "It’s not that black and white.”
The Dutchman also showed his true colours when he refused to condemn the terror group’s use of Yazidi sex slaves giving Alan a cold "no comment" response.
Thousands of Yazidi women and children were taken by militants when the terror group stormed their communities in the Sinjar region of north west Iraq in 2014.
Alan says Kurdish forces want to prosecute jailed jihadis like Riedijk but need the support of western governments to carry out the judicial process.
He told The Sun Online: "The world has forgotten that the Kurds have been left with this problem.
"They want to charge these militants with committing war crimes in their country - but they need the support of western powers.
"They have a large portion of the the world's terrorists in their jails but need backing to carry out Nuremberg-style trials."
Most read in News
Alan, a former British Army soldier from Scotland, rescued a Yazidi sex slave in Al-Hawl compound which was packed with extremists.
The brave ex-squaddie has interviewed dozens of jailed ISIS militants on camera in camps in north-east Syria.
READ MORE SUN STORIES
He is working on a documentary featuring explosive, never-before-seen interviews with western jihadis, including British.
to follow Alan on TikTok.
4
Topics