This was the life of Shamima Begum’s terrorist husband in the West before he moved to Syria, as he described her from his prison cell as a “clueless ISIS wife.”
Yago Riedijk is a Dutch convert who, at the age of 21, departed his comfortable middle-class upbringing to join IS, resulting in a six-year prison sentence in Holland.
After landing in Syria, he sent his family images of himself posing with a fake rifle and in military garb, along with a request for money and a boast about marrying a 15-year-old British girl.
During her time in the nation, Riedijk and Begum had three children, two of whom died of disease or hunger, and the third, born after her arrest by forces backed by the West, died of pneumonia.
However, Riedijk is currently imprisoned in Syria due to his capture by Kurdish troops.
In a distressing interview for the BBC documentary The Shamima Begum Story, dead-eyed Reidijk described how, following their marriage by an ISIS court, he escorted the teenager to the park with ice cream.
He stated that she was first “clueless” about how to be a wife, but later “learned how married life worked” and the significance of “respect, pleasing her husband, and obedience.”
However, Riedijk remained silent when asked about the age difference.
‘Essentially, I was seeking for a spouse, and a buddy of mine approached me and said, ‘Your sister is also looking for a spouse; are you interested?’ He said to Alan Duncan, “I accepted his offer.”
The former combatant told how he sat down with Begum: ‘We spoke, and we agreed on the terms of the marriage.’
He explained that the prerequisites weren’t particularly large or significant, but rather consisted of simple activities, such as going shopping.
“Basically, she requested some liberties, and I agreed to grant them to her – going shopping, meeting her friends, really basic stuff. We agreed to a dowry, and all she asked for was an English translation of the Koran, which I agreed to provide.
When he married Begum, he was undergoing rehabilitation and physiotherapy, according to Riedijk.
Photos showed him riding a bicycle with a toddler in front of him outside his parents’ home in the Dutch city of Arnhem were in stark contrast to his choice to escape the country. In another, his mother lays her arm over his shoulder with affection.
Lex, the railway engineer father of Riedijk, reported him missing in October 2014 after failing to communicate with him for two weeks.
Police discovered extremist jihadi materials in the Rotterdam apartment he rented. Before he vanished, he had informed the landlord that he would be departing at the end of the month.
It is believed that he traveled to Turkey and subsequently to Syria.
Begum stated he was wounded in Kobani prior to their marriage, 10 days after she landed in Raqqa from London and requested an English-speaking soldier.
The paranoid regime then imprisoned and tortured him for six months on suspicion that he was a spy.
Riedijk was ultimately released, but was no longer considered a fighter.
Instead, the pair continued to reside in Raqqa, living what Shamima characterized as a “normal life” with occasional “bombing and stuff.” All of this was a far cry from his upbringing in Arnhem. Some have referred to the city as the “jihadi capital” of the Netherlands.
Riedijk was raised at De Laar, six kilometers from the city center. His estate was constructed in the 1960s for couples with young children, and his parents, Ankie and Lex, have lived in the same residence for more than four decades.
His father is an engineer for the local railroad, and his sister studied physics at a local university.
It is believed that the family is not religious, and that Riedijk converted to Islam in his late teens.
It is unknown how he became radicalized, although it is believed that the extremist Dutch preacher Abdul-Jabbar Van de Ven, who is now believed to reside in Manchester, radicalized a number of young men in Arnhem.
In 2018, authorities infiltrated an Arnhem-based IS terror cell that was plotting a Paris-style attack. According to reports, Riedijk was in regular communication with the group, who were planned to attack a local rock festival.
The men had been training for jihad at a summer camp and intended to kill revelers with grenades and AK-47 assault rifles before detonating a vehicle bomb.
However, two undercover police agents entered their ranks and provided them with replica firearms. The men were apprehended prior to their ability to attack.
In 2017, Dutch authorities demanded the return of seven alleged terrorists, including Riedijk, for trial. The second trial, which was conducted in their absence, revealed that investigators discovered he had taken funds from his bank account in the Turkish border city of Gaziantep.
He eventually contacted his family and informed them that he had joined the caliphate. He told his cousin that he had married a 15-year-old British girl and was serving as a high-ranking member of IS’s right-hand man.
The court heard that authorities discovered images of the defendant posing with a replica AK-47 on his father’s computer. In addition, he emailed his father photographs of himself in a military uniform and requested that his family send him money.
The prosecutor attempted to reach him via Facebook and WhatsApp prior to his trial, but the court was satisfied that he had joined the group and did not wish to return.
»Shamima Begum’s husband’s Western life before joining ISIS in Syria«
↯↯↯Read More On The Topic On TDPel Media ↯↯↯