Former UK citizen and member of the ISIS terrorist group
Shamima Begum has said she thought she “did the right thing as a Muslim” by joining and now wants to help the UK fight terrorism, she told British media outlets.
Speaking first to Good Morning Britain host Susanna Reid, Begum had apologized to all those affected by ISIS and said she “in no way agree with what they did.”
“I’m not trying to justify what they did. It’s not justifiable to kill innocent people in the name of religion,” she told GMB, asking for forgiveness for the British people, stating that “I also have lived in fear of ISIS and I also lost loved ones because of ISIS.”
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Begum, 22, told the
BBC she regretting joining the terrorist group when she was 15, and said the decision made her “sick to my stomach.” She explained that if she were allowed back in the United Kingdom, she could help combat tactics ISIS uses to recruit people from abroad, including other British citizens.
Speaking to GMB, she said that she could be “an asset” to UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson in the fight on terrorism.
Begum joined ISIS at the age of 15 and made headlines all over the world in the following seven years.
In that time,
UK media reported that she served as an ISIS enforcer and recruiter, with
The Independent citing two allegations that she stitched “suicide bombers into explosive vests so they could not be removed without detonating.”
She has since ostensibly left the organization. However, former UK home secretary Sajid Javid had stripped her of her UK citizenship in 2019.
This is despite the decision itself being a violation of British law and UN international law.
Britain’s Secretary of State for local government Sajid Javid leaves a cabinet meeting in Downing Street, London, January 17, 2017. REUTERS/Neil Hall (credit: REUTERS/NEIL HALL)
This decision does not seem likely to change, Javid, who is now health secretary, later told GMB. He said the move to take away her citizenship was “both morally right, absolutely right, but also legally correct and the right one to protect the British people.”
“I won’t go into details of the case, but what I will say is that you certainly haven’t seen what I saw,” he told GMB.
“If you did know what I knew, because you are sensible, responsible people, you would have made exactly the same decision – of that I have no doubt.”
However, Begum continues to have many supporters around the world in her quest to regain her citizenship, or at least be allowed back in the UK.
In July 2020, the UK Court of Appeals said she should be allowed to return to the country in order to fairly defend herself against this decision. In February 2021, however, the Supreme Court
unanimously overturned this decision.
