Shamima Begum: I had to say I supported Islamic State or risk death

Shamima Begum, 21, was photographed in Western attire in exclusive Telegraph pictures earlier this week

Credit: Sam Tarling 

Islamic State bride Shamima Begum has said she "had no choice but to say certain things" to journalists that led to her UK citizenship being revoked, because she “lived in fear” that women in the camp would kill her and her baby if she didn’t.

In an emotive interview in a new documentary, Ms Begum – then aged 19 and still wearing the Islamic niqab – begs to be given a “second chance”.

The film, "The Return: Life After ISIS", follows her and other young women who travelled to Syria to join the terror group’s short-lived caliphate only to end up “stateless” and stuck living in a refugee camp in Syria.

"I would say to the people in the UK, give me a second chance because I was still young when I left," she says in the film, which is due to premiere at the American South by Southwest film festival later on Wednesday.

"I just want them to put aside everything they’ve heard about me in the media."

A family photo of Ms Begum before she left for Syria in 2015

Credit: LAURA LEAN /AFP

The Telegraph this week published exclusive pictures of Ms Begum, now 21, wearing Western clothing and no head covering at the Al-Roj camp near the Iraq-Syria border, in an apparent rejection of her previous religious beliefs.

She declined to speak to the paper under legal advice as she appeals the decision over her citizenship.

Ms Begum was 15 when she left her home in Bethnal Green, east London, to travel to Syria along with two school friends. She married a Dutch jihadi fighter and had three children, all of whom have since died.

Two years ago, she was discovered by journalists living in a refugee camp with other captured jihadi brides following the defeat of IS.

At the time heavily pregnant with her third child, she showed little remorse for joining the terror group and claimed that the Manchester Arena bombing by a suicide bomber in 2017 had been “justified”.

Ms Begum, then 19, in a Syrian refugee camp, being shown a copy of the Home Office letter which stripped her of her British citizenship

Credit: ITV News 

She subsequently had her citizenship revoked by the Home Secretary, a decision she is currently challenging. 

In the film, Ms Begum says she "had no choice but to say certain things" to journalists "because I lived in fear of these women coming to my tent one day and killing me and killing my baby.”

Tasnime Akunjee, lawyer for Ms Begum’s family this week accused Britain of racism over her treatment, calling her a "tragic scapegoat".

Bethnal Green schoolgirls (rom left to right) Amira Abase, 15, Kadiza Sultana, 16, and Shamima Begum, 15, at Gatwick airport on their way to Syria in February 2015

Credit: Metropolitan Police /PA

The documentary includes Ms Begum recalling feeling like an "outsider" as a teenager in London.

She says she just wanted to "help the Syrians" but quickly realised Isil were “trapping people” like her in order to boost their numbers.

Asked about the terror group’s atrocities, which included public beheadings, mass rapes and the execution of Western journalists, Ms Begum denies she "knew about" or "supported these crimes."

She also dismisses claims she could have been in the group’s feared morality police, due to the fact she was a naive "15-year-old with no Islamic knowledge" who did not even "speak the language."

French children peer through a gate in Al Roj Camp in northeastern Syria

Credit: Sam Tarling 

The documentary’s Spanish director Alba Sotorra had rare, extensive access to Ms Begum and other Western women over several months in the Kurdish-run Al Roj camp.

"Shamima was a piece of ice when I met her,” Ms Sotorra said. "She lost the [third] kid when I was there… it took a while to be able to cry”.

Many of the women — fresh from a war-zone — were "somehow blocked… not thinking and not feeling," she added.

But she also found groups of "small but very powerful" groups of "more radicalised women" within the camps who remained loyal to IS and exerted pressure and intimidation on others.  

Sky has picked up the film and will be premiering it on Sky Documentaries and NOW TV in the Summer.