Former Counter-Terror Minister: Returning Isis Schoolgirl Showing No Remorse

14 February 2019, 08:53

The schoolgirl who wants to return to the UK having fled to join Isis is showing no guilt or remorse, yet wants to take advantage of the NHS, an expert told LBC.

Dr Kim Howells, a former Foreign Office and Counter-Terrorism Minister, believes she shouldn't be let back into the country, but that she will be for the good of her unborn child.

Shamima Begum has revealed she is going to give birth to her baby "any day now", having married a young Dutch IS fighter called Yago Riedijk three weeks after she arrived in Syria four years ago.

The 19-year-old fled the UK in 2015 with two other friends, Kadiza Sultana and Amira Abase, from Bethnal Green, and said she has been living "a normal life" in the caliphate, interrupted by "bombing and stuff".

But Dr Howells told Nick Ferrari: "You can bet your bottom dollar there will be a lobby that will swing into action to get this girl home on humanitarian grounds.

"But she sounds to be completely unrepentant, she sounds cynical, she said she wasn't phased by the sight of these heads in a bin as she described it. And she sounds well educated.

"She was obviously deluded by Islamic propaganda and now she wants to take advantage of the NHS.

"She wants to get back to a country which is the antithesis of this Caliphate that was so attractive for so many people and responsible for so much brutality.

"There's not going to be many people with great enthusiasm for bringing her back, but I suspect she will make it in the end."