Shamima Begum, now 22, said the only crime she had committed was “being silly enough to join ISIS.”
London:
A woman who lost her British citizenship after joining the Islamic State group said on Wednesday she would be prepared to face terror charges again in order to prove her innocence.
Shamima Begum was 15 when she traveled from her home in London in 2015 with two friends from school in Syria, where she married an IS fighter and had three children.
Nicknamed the “girlfriend of ISIS”, she was stripped of her British citizenship after a right-wing media outrage when journalists were tracked to a displacement camp in 2019 and defended jihadists.
Earlier this year, the Supreme Court refused his permission for public safety reasons to return to Britain to challenge the government’s decision.
But he has denied being directly involved in the preparation of acts of terror.
“I am willing to go to court and confront the people who made these claims and refute these claims because I know I did nothing at IS but to be a mother and wife,” she said.
“These claims are made to make me look worse because the government has nothing on me. There is no evidence because nothing has ever happened,” he told ITV.
Begum, now 22, said the only crime he had committed was “being stupid enough to join ISIS” and apologized to all those who had lost their loved ones to extremists.
“I’m sorry if I offended someone by coming here, if I offended anyone by the things I said,” Begum said from Syria, wearing a baseball cap and shirt.
Lawyers for Begum, whose father is Bangladeshi, have accused Britain of racism in its treatment of it, accusing the government of turning it into a scapegoat.
They have said she was “a trafficked girl and remained in Syria for the purposes of sexual exploitation and forced marriage” and the government’s actions leave her stateless.
Bangladesh’s foreign minister has said he will not consider granting citizenship.
An estimated 900 people have traveled from Britain to Syria and Iraq to join ISIS, creating a legal headache for UK authorities now that the conflict is over.
It is believed that about 150 have been deprived of their citizenship.
Begum, whose three children died after arriving in Syria, was first seen in 2019 wearing a black hijab and said she did not regret traveling to Syria.
But he has since been dressed in Western clothing and has expressed remorse for his actions and sympathy for the victims of IS.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)