Shamima Begum: ‘I’m just so much more than ISIS’
11 January 2023, 10:51 | Updated: 11 January 2023, 11:12
Shamima Begum has insisted she is ‘so much more than ISIS' in a new series of interviews.
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In the new 10-part podcast where she ‘retraces her journey’ she also reveals she packed her suitcase with mint Aero chocolate because she couldn’t find it in Syria.
The podcast, by the BBC, has been criticised over ‘giving terrorists a platform’ and the corporation has been accused of ‘wasting licence fee payers’ money’.
But the BBC said the podcasts would give her ‘full account’ of what really happened and defended it as a 'robust, public interest investigation'.
At 15, Begum and her school friends Kadiza Sultana, 15, and Amira Abase, 16, fled London to join ISIS.
She was later found in a refugee camp in 2019 and had her British citizenship withdrawn.
Read more: Shamima Begum's mother Asma says her 'world fell apart' when she ran away to join ISIS
In the first episode of the podcast, the 23-year-old described packing her bags with mint chocolate before heading to Syria to join the terror group.
She shares details of her journey to Syria, and how she was given instructions by IS members as well as researching information herself ahead of the trip.
Begum and her friends also game-planned for different scenarios in case they were quizzed or caught out.
She said she accepts she joined the cult but believes public anger aimed at her is actually towards ISIS.
“When they think of ISIS they think of me because I've been put on the media so much but what was there to obsess over?” Begum said.
“We went to ISIS, that was it. It was over, it was over and done with.”
These two raging callers clash about bringing Shamima Begum back to the UK.
Begum said at the time she was “not thinking” but was still “kind of relieved” that it could be the last time she saw the UK.
However, she told journalist Josh Baker that now being stuck in a refugee camp in northern Syria is “worse than a prison”.
“I think it's because at least with prison sentences you know that there will be an end but here you don't know if there's going to be an end,” she said.
The series is intended to “separate fact from fiction”.
Other topics covered include how Begum got to Syria and what did she did when she got there.
