‘I was groomed’: Shamima Begum insists she ‘didn’t hate Britain’ when she fled to Syria – and now wants to face trial in UK
Shamima Begum, the Bethnal Green schoolgirl who fled to Syria and joined IS, has told Sky News she was groomed by friends and older men she met online before joining the terror group.
Speaking from a prison camp in Syria, Begum said she wanted to go on trial in the UK and invited British officials to question her in prison.
And she said that when she left the UK in 2015 she “didn’t hate Britain”, but hated her life as she felt “very constricted”.
In a wide-ranging interview, Begum spoke about her experiences with Islamic State and life in Syria.
Begum, now 22, said she wanted to go on trial in the UK
“Can I keep my mask on?” Shamima Begum asks before the interview starts. “I’m looking ugly today.”
Begum now speaks with a soft American twang and little trace of her east London upbringing.
She wears yoga leggings, a pink sweatshirt, black baseball cap and a small handbag across her chest.
In almost any other context, she would be utterly unremarkable, but this is a prison camp in northeast Syria and Begum, now free of her strict black Islamic State dress, remains a captive of her notorious past.
She left home in London aged 15 for the promise of paradise, instead she found “hell, hell on Earth”.
Begum rejects accusations that she carried out atrocities as part of IS as “all completely false”.
“I’m willing to fight them in a court of law but I’m not being given a chance.”
She wants to do that in Britain but expects to go to prison even though the only crime she admits to committing is travelling to Syria itself.
Begum now believes she was groomed for “weeks and weeks and maybe even months and months. It wasn’t just a decision I made very quickly, it was a decision I thought about for a while.”
“I didn’t hate Britain, I hated my life really,” she said. “I felt very constricted, and I felt I couldn’t live the life that I wanted in the UK as a British woman.”
She told Sky’s Alistair Bunkall: ‘I didn’t hate Britain, I hated my life really. I felt very constricted.’
There is a childlike shyness to her, still. She rarely makes eye contact as we talk, often looking downwards and away; she interlinks her hands down by her waist, unconsciously closing her body a little as she answers my questions.
Perhaps she is a good actress, turning it on for the camera, but my instinct is that she is every bit as young and naive as you might expect of her 22 years. Naive, but not necessarily innocent.
Begum and I walk around al Roj camp together – mud and sand streets lined by white tents provided by the UN.
Begum is worried about recent fires, scared that her high profile will make her a target for inmates wanting to make a name for themselves.
“For a long time it [the camp] wasn’t violent but for some reason it’s become more scary to live here.
“Maybe the women have got tired of waiting for something,” she reasons.
We talk about her family – she misses them but doesn’t currently speak to them: “I don’t think they failed me, in a way I failed them. When the time is right, I want to reconcile.”
Begum said: ‘It’s hard to think about a future when everyone tells you that you’re not going to go back’
I ask her about her future: “It’s hard to think about a future when everyone tells you that you’re not going to go back.”
And she brings up her Dutch husband, the father of her three dead children, who fought for Islamic State and recently spoke about their “beautiful life” together.
Are they still officially married? “Yes.”
Does she sympathise with him? “No.”
Does she miss him? “No.”
Begum tells me that she rarely watches television but does have a stack of books in her tent, her favourites are by the Afghan author Khalid Hosseini. “I re-read the Kite Runner but I don’t know why people keep giving me books about war.”
By herself, she eats dried noodles, but is “having friends round to her tent for supper tomorrow night”. She won’t cook herself, instead she will buy it in from another woman on camp.
“I have hopes and dreams, things I want to do, to see,” she says, but won’t expand when I push her.
One of her friends, a Dutch prisoner called Hafedda Haddouch, tells me Begum often hides away in her tent for weeks. But Begum insists she’s not suicidal, when I ask her.
Begum and Bunkall walked around al Roj camp together – mud and sand streets lined by white tents provided by the UN
The small group of women are clearly Shamima’s support. They giggle and pose for photos, as vain as you would expect of anyone that age.
For some, Begum is a cause célèbre, unfairly imprisoned without trial and an example of a heartless Conservative government. For others, she is a terrorist, who still poses a threat to national security and should never be allowed back into the country of her birth.
Such is the visceral hatred of many in that quarter, you wonder whether a return to the UK would be wise at all for Begum.
Bangladesh, the country with which the UK claims she held dual-nationality, has rejected any association with her.
“There is no Plan B,” is her answer when I ask what she will do if the British government doesn’t reverse its position and reinstate her citizenship.
Shamima Begum was 15 when she fled to Syria
Have any British officials or lawyers visited her in prison? “Never” she claims.
Her opinion towards the media is conflicted – she blames past interviews and reporting “100%” for her current limbo, but also believes a high profile remains her only hope of release. There’s probably some truth in both those positions.
Almost a third of Shamima Begum’s life has now been lived in Syria. She is being held in prison, for an indeterminate amount of time, but hasn’t yet stood trial. That much is fact.
If she had been repatriated the day the caliphate fell, she might already be some considerable way through a guilty sentence, but the British government decided she was a risk to national security, a decision the Supreme Court upheld.
She has been disowned by the country she grew up in, cut off from the family she grew up with, and is now part of a prison population that is becoming an increasingly unsustainable burden on the Kurdish authorities who guard them.
Shamima Begum is the woman that nobody wants, and she knows it. When she closes her eyes at night she says she is haunted by “my children dying, the bombings, the constant running, my friends dying”.
Begum has already been judged, albeit only in court of public opinion, and for now, she is going nowhere.
The Shamima Begum interview was produced by Andrew Drury and Zein Ja’far and filmed by Jake Britton.
The dates for Donald Trump’s state visit to the UK have been announced, with the US president due to be welcomed by the King from 17 to 19 September.
Buckingham Palace also confirmed that President Trump and first lady Melania will be hosted by the King and Queen at Windsor Castle.
It was expected that the three-day state visit would take place in September after Mr Trump let slip earlier in April that he believed that was when his second “fest” was being planned for.
Windsor was also anticipated to be the location after the US president told reporters in the Oval Office that the letter from the King said Windsor would be the setting. Refurbishment works at Buckingham Palace also meant that Windsor was used last week for French President Emmanuel Macron’s visit.
This will be Mr Trump’s second state visit to the UK, an unprecedented gesture towards an American leader, having previously been invited to Buckingham Palace in 2019.
Donald Trump and Melania Trump posing with Charles and Camilla in 2019. Pic: Reuters
He has also been to Windsor Castle before, in 2018, but despite the considerable military pageantry of the day, and some confusion around inspecting the guard, it was simply for tea with Queen Elizabeth II.
Further details of what will happen during the three-day visit in September will be announced in due course.
On Friday, Sky News revealed it is now unlikely that the US president will address parliament, usually an honour given to visiting heads of state as part of their visit. Some MPs had raised significant concerns about him being given the privilege.
But the House of Commons will not be sitting at the time of Mr Trump’s visit as it will rise for party conference season on the 16 September, meaning the president will not be able to speak in parliament as President Macron did during his state visit this week. However, the House of Lords will be sitting.
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Labour MP: ‘Trump isn’t welcome here’
In February this year, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer presented the US president with the letter from the King inviting him to visit during a meeting at the White House.
After reading it, Mr Trump said it was a “great, great honour”, adding “and that says at Windsor – that’s really something”.
In February, Sir Keir Starmer revealed a letter from the King inviting Donald Trump to the UK. Pic: Reuters
In the letter, the King suggested they might meet at Balmoral or Dumfries House in Scotland first before the much grander state visit. However, it is understood that, although all options were explored, complexities in both the King and Mr Trump’s diaries meant it wasn’t possible.
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Is the UK ready for a ‘Trump-fest’?
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This week, it emerged that Police Scotland are planning for a summer visit from the US president, which is likely to see him visit one or both of his golf clubs in Aberdeenshire and Ayrshire, and require substantial policing resources and probably units to be called in from elsewhere in the UK.
Precedent for second-term US presidents, who have already made a state visit, is usually tea or lunch with the monarch at Windsor Castle, as was the case for George W Bush and Barack Obama.
A small plane has crashed at Southend Airport in Essex.
Essex Police said it was at the scene of a “serious incident”.
Images posted online showed huge flames and a large cloud of black smoke, with one witness saying they saw a “fireball”.
A police statement said: “We were alerted shortly before 4pm to reports of a collision involving one 12-metre plane.
“We are working with all emergency services at the scene now and that work will be ongoing for several hours.
“We would please ask the public to avoid this area where possible while this work continues.”
A huge fireball near the airport. Pic: Ben G
It has been reported that the plane involved in the incident is a Beech B200 Super King Air.
According to flight-tracking service Flightradar, it took off at 3.48pm and was bound for Lelystad, a city in the Netherlands.
One man, who was at Southend Airport with his family around the time of the incident, said the aircraft “crashed headfirst into the ground”.
John Johnson said: “About three or four seconds after taking off, it started to bank heavily to its left, and then within a few seconds of that happening, it more or less inverted and crashed.
“There was a big fireball. Obviously, everybody was in shock in terms of witnessing it. All the kids saw it and the families saw it.”
Mr Johnson added that he phoned 999 to report the crash.
Southend Airport said the incident involved “a general aviation aircraft”.
Four flights scheduled to take off from Southend this afternoon were cancelled, according to its website.
Flightradar data shows two planes that had been due to land at Southend were diverted to nearby airports London Gatwick and London Stansted.
Plumes of black smoke. Pic: UKNIP
Essex County Fire and Rescue Service said four crews, along with off-road vehicles, have attended the scene.
Four ambulances and four hazardous area response team vehicles are also at the airport, as well as an air ambulance, the East of England Ambulance Service said.
Its statement described the incident as “still developing”.
Fire engines at the airport
David Burton-Sampson, the MP for Southend West and Leigh, posted on social media: “I am aware of an incident at Southend Airport. Please keep away and allow the emergency services to do their work.
“My thoughts are with everyone involved.”
Local councillor Matt Dent said on X: “At present all I know is that a small plane has crashed at the airport. My thoughts are with all those involved, and with the emergency services currently responding to the incident.”
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UK
Heidi Alexander says ‘fairness’ will be government’s ‘guiding principle’ when it comes to taxes at next budget
Another hint that tax rises are coming in this autumn’s budget has been given by a senior minister.
Speaking to Sunday Morning with Trevor Phillips, Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander was asked if Sir Keir Starmer and the rest of the cabinet had discussed hiking taxes in the wake of the government’s failed welfare reforms, which were shot down by their own MPs.
Trevor Phillips asked specifically if tax rises were discussed among the cabinet last week – including on an away day on Friday.
Politics Hub: Catch up on the latest
Tax increases were not discussed “directly”, Ms Alexander said, but ministers were “cognisant” of the challenges facing them.
Asked what this means, Ms Alexander added: “I think your viewers would be surprised if we didn’t recognise that at the budget, the chancellor will need to look at the OBR forecast that is given to her and will make decisions in line with the fiscal rules that she has set out.
“We made a commitment in our manifesto not to be putting up taxes on people on modest incomes, working people. We have stuck to that.”
Ms Alexander said she wouldn’t comment directly on taxes and the budget at this point, adding: “So, the chancellor will set her budget. I’m not going to sit in a TV studio today and speculate on what the contents of that budget might be.
“When it comes to taxation, fairness is going to be our guiding principle.”
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Afterwards, shadow home secretary Chris Philp told Phillips: “That sounds to me like a barely disguised reference to tax rises coming in the autumn.”
He then went on to repeat the Conservative attack lines that Labour are “crashing the economy”.
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Chris Philp also criticsed the government’s migration deal with France
Mr Philp then attacked the prime minister as “weak” for being unable to get his welfare reforms through the Commons.
Discussions about potential tax rises have come to the fore after the government had to gut its welfare reforms.
Sir Keir had wanted to change Personal Independence Payments (PIP), but a large Labour rebellion forced him to axe the changes.
With the savings from these proposed changes – around £5bn – already worked into the government’s sums, they will now need to find the money somewhere else.
The general belief is that this will take the form of tax rises, rather than spending cuts, with more money needed for military spending commitments, as well as other areas of priority for the government, such as the NHS.
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