Western life of Shamima Begum’s jihadi husband before he fled his Dutch home to join ISIS in Syria

This is the Western life of Shamima Begum‘s jihadi husband before he fled to Syria – as he spoke from his prison cell to describe her as a ‘clueless ISIS wife’.

Yago Riedijk is a Dutch convert who was 21 when he fled his comfortable middle-class home to join IS – earning him a six-year jail sentence in his absence in Holland.

After arriving in Syria, he sent his family photographs posing with a fake rifle and in military gear, while also asking for cash and boasting about marrying a 15-year-old British girl.

Riedijk and Begum had three children together during her time in the country, two of whom died of disease or malnutrition, and a third born after her capture by Western-backed forces, died of pneumonia.

But Riedijk is currently behind bars in Syria after being captured by Kurdish forces.

Dutch ISIS fighter Yago Riedijk (left), husband of Shamima Begum. Riedijk had previously bragged about marrying Shamima

Riedijk and Begum (pictured) had three children together during her time in the country, two of whom died of disease or malnutrition, and a third born after her capture by Western-backed forces, died of pneumonia

In a disturbing interview for BBC documentary The Shamima Begum Story, dead-eyed Reidijk spoke from his prison cell of how he took the schoolgirl to the park for ice cream after they were married by an ISIS judge. 

He said that at first she was ‘clueless’ about how to be a wife but then ‘learned how married life worked’ and the importance of ‘respect, pleasing her husband and obedience’. 

However, Riedijk made no comment when asked about the age gap.

‘Basically, I was looking for marriage and a friend of mine came to me and said there’s a sister looking for marriage, are you interested? I took him up on his offer,’ he said, speaking to Alan Duncan.

The former fighter described how he sat down with Begum: ‘We had a talk, we agreed on the conditions of marriage.’

The conditions were ‘not really something big or anything important, it was small things like going out shopping, things like this,’ he said.

‘Basically she asked for some freedoms, which I agreed to give her – going shopping, seeing her friends, very, very basic stuff. We agreed on a dowry – all she asked for was an English translation of the Koran, which I agreed to.’

In a disturbing interview for BBC documentary The Shamima Begum Story, dead-eyed Reidijk spoke from his prison cell

Yago Riedijk (left) is currently behind bars in Syria after being captured by Kurdish forces fighting for ISIS

When he married Begum, he was ‘in recovery and doing physiotherapy,’ Riedijk added.

But his decision to flee the Netherlands was a far cry from earlier photos of him sitting on the bike with a child in front of him outside his parents’ home in the Dutch city of Arnhem. In others, his mother lovingly drapes her arm over his shoulder.

A Dutch court heard Riedijk’s father Lex, a railway engineer, had reported him missing in October 2014 when he failed to get in touch with him for two weeks.

Police found radical jihadi materials in a flat he was renting in Rotterdam. He had told the landlord he would be leaving at the end of the month before vanishing.

He is thought to have travelled to Turkey, and then on to Syria.

Begum said he was injured fighting in Kobani before they married, ten days after she arrived in Raqqa from London, when she asked to be matched with an English speaking fighter.

He was later imprisoned and tortured for six months, accused by the paranoid regime of being a spy.

Riedijk was eventually released but no longer classified as a fighter.

Instead, the couple continued to live together in Raqqa, enjoying what Shamima described as a ‘normal life’ with ‘bombing and stuff’ every now and then. It was all a long way from his upbringing in Arnhem. The city has been described by some as a the ‘jihadi capital’ of The Netherlands.

Riedijk grew up in De Laar, four miles from the centre. His estate was built in the Sixties for couples with young families and his parents, Ankie and Lex, have lived in the same house for more than 40 years.

His father is an engineer at the local railway, while his sister studied physics at a nearby university.

The former fighter described how he sat down with Begum: ‘We had a talk, we agreed on the conditions of marriage.’

 He said that at first Begum (pictured) was ‘clueless’ about how to be a wife but then ‘learned how married life worked’

The family are not believed to be religious, and it is understood Riedijk converted to Islam in his late teens.

It is not known how he was radicalised, but a number of young men in Arnhem are said to have been converted by radical Dutch preacher Abdul-Jabbar Van de Ven, who is now thought to be living in Manchester.

In 2018, police infiltrated an IS terror cell made up of men from Arnhem who were planning a Paris-style attack. It was reported that Riedijk was in regular contact with the gang, who were plotting to target a rock festival in the city.

The men had been training for jihad at a holiday camp and planned to walk among revellers using grenades and AK-47 assault rifles to kill them before detonating a car bomb.

But two undercover police officers had infiltrated their ranks and supplied them with dummy weapons. The men were arrested before they had chance to attack.

In 2017, Dutch prosecutors had called for seven suspected jihadists – including Riedijk – to return home to be tried. The subsequent trial, held in their absence, heard investigators found he had withdrawn cash from his bank account in the Turkish border town of Gaziantep.

He eventually made contact with his family, telling them he had joined the caliphate. He told a cousin he had married a 15-year-old British girl and was working as the right-hand man to a high-ranking member of IS.

The court heard that police found photographs on his father’s computer that showed him posing with a replica AK-47. He also sent his father photos of himself in a military outfit and asked his family to send him money.

The prosecutor tried to contact him ahead of his trial, sending messages on Facebook and WhatsApp but the court was satisfied he had joined the group and did not want to return.