Shamima Begum says she was just a ‘dumb kid’ when she joined ISIS in Syria & insists she DOESN’T need rehabilitating
SHAMIMA Begum has said she was just a "dumb kid" when she joined ISIS in Syria and has insisted she does not need rehabilitating.
The 21-year-old jihadi bride fled Britain to join the militant group in 2015, when she was 15, but says she was not a terrorist.
Shamima said: "I personally don't think that I need to be rehabilitated, but I would want to help other people be rehabilitated. I would love to help."
I don't think I was a terrorist. I think I was just a dumb kid who made one mistake
Shamima Begum
When asked what she would say to people who do not want her to return to the UK, she said: "Can I come home please, pretty please?"
The ex-jihadi bride has also started wearing Western-style clothes, including jeans and baseball caps.
She explained: "I wear these clothes, and I don't wear a hijab, because it makes me happy. And anything in this camp that makes me happy is like a lifesaver."
Shamima said in the camp she enjoys listening to Kanye West's music and followed the news of his divorce from Kim Kardashian - and she even watched re-runs of Friends.
She said she was "young and naive" when she decided to leave the UK and join ISIS.
She added: “I knew it was a big decision, but I just felt compelled to do it quickly. I didn't want to be the friend that was left behind.”
Shamima said recruiters preyed on the guilt they felt at seeing Muslims suffer in the Syrian conflict.
A filmmaker who met her at a refugee camp in Syria last year said she is not a threat to anyone, but is broken and needs help.
Can I come home please, pretty please?
Shamima Begum
Spanish director Alba Sotorra told : "In the beginning, Shamima was like a ghost just sitting there, covered, lifeless, like a marionette, a doll."
He added: "Her lack of ability to express her feelings made me feel deeply sad for her.
"Then, maybe two or three months after I met her, we had this game with the kids.
"The kids were playing with kites. Shamima was always very silent.
"And she sat on one of these carts watching. I saw a teardrop fall from her eye. It was the first time."
Shamima gave birth to three children in Syria but all of them died.
In a documentary, which was shot in 2019, she said that after the death of her third child, a son, she stayed up all night with his body.
She said: "He was my last hope, he was the only thing keeping me alive. I didn’t know how.
"That day I just cried for all my children. I cried for all of them. No one could help me, no one could do anything."
Shamima was defeated in her legal battle to return to the UK for a court appeal over the removal of her British citizenship earlier this year.
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The Supreme Court uninamously ruled in favour of the Government and said Shamima cannot come back to the UK for a court case to reclaim her British passport for the safety of the public.
Delivering the ruling, Lord Reed savaged a previous judgement by the Court of Appeal and said it had "made its own assessment of the requirements of [national] security" without any "relative evidence".