Why we’d be mad to give a second chance to a jihadi bride

According to her father, she is just like any other British lass — a westernised, welleducated, polite girl who was raised in a council flat in East London.

Unemployed chef Ahmed Ali doted on Kolsoma Begum and her eight siblings. And no one was more shocked than him when his daughter, then aged 20, said she was going to spend a few days with friends and did not return. it turned out his little angel had married jihadist Stefan Aristidou and they had travelled to Syria and joined ISIS in 2015.

The couple spent two years there, had a daughter, and were arrested by Turkish authorities on suspicion of terrorist offences after trying to flee Syria last September.

Evidently they decided it wasn’t much fun hanging out with fanatical jihadi butchers, and now want to come home to the safety of the UK.

A delighted Mr Ali accepts that his child needs to face the law if she returns, yet he pleads: ‘give them a lesson so they can realise their mistakes. As a father, i’m saying everyone deserves a second chance.

‘if i could talk to her, i would say: “You know you have made a mistake and this is where you belong . . . this is where your children will be living.’

What arrant nonsense. is that really what the rest of us want, whether we are peace-loving christians, Jews, Sikhs or Muslims?

Welcoming ISIS-HARDENED Brits back into this country is the last thing we need, a month after five people were murdered by a jihadist in Westminster — and in the week police stopped a bearded man carrying a bag full of knives just yards from downing Street.

The director general of M15, Andrew Parker, says there are at least 3,000 committed islamists in the UK who would do us harm. Anthony glees, director of the centre for Security and intelligence Studies at the University of Buckingham, fears there could be 10,000.

Begum and her husband may have been fleeing ISIS but they are hardly innocents, having joined them in the first place. The Turkish authorities are said to be seeking to jail the pair for up to 15 years, and that’s what should happen.

it’s heart-breaking for Mr Ali, yes. But in these dangerous times no jihadist deserves a second chance.