Shamima Begum wants to face trial in UK

QAMISHLI, Syria (North Press) – I did not hate Britain but my life, and I want to be tried, Shamima Begum, the former ISIS bride, told Sky News.

From Roj refugee camp in far northeast Syria, Begum said she wanted to go on trial in the UK and invited British officials to question her in prison, “I’m willing to fight them in a court of law but I’m not being given a chance.”

“I didn’t hate Britain, I hated my life really,” she said, adding “I felt very constricted, and I felt I couldn’t live the life that I wanted in the UK as a British woman.”

Begum, now free of her strict black Islamic State dress, is one of hundreds of ISIS women who live in Roj Camp since the collapse of ISIS in Syria. The majority of these women have been refused repatriation by their home governments.

“For a long time it [the camp] wasn’t violent but for some reason it’s become more scary to live here,” she noted.

Begum was 15 years old when she left the UK in 2015 and fled to Syria with two schoolmates in order to join ISIS in Syria.

Begum told Sky News she was groomed by friends and older men she met online before joining ISIS.

Speaking to Sky News, ISIS bride pointed out she has “hopes and dreams” but is currently living in “hell on earth” after fleeing the UK in 2015.

She repeated her denial of accusations that she carried out crimes as part of, saying they are “completely false”.

In February 19, 2019, she was stripped of her British citizenship by then-Home Secretary Sajid Javid, upon being discovered in a northern Syrian refugee camp during the battle to liberate the last stronghold of ISIS in Syria by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).