In a Wimbledon cap, her very middle-class terrorist husband
SITTING astride a motorbike and wearing a Wimbledon cap, this is the husband of jihadi bride Shamima Begum.
Yago Riedijk is a Dutch convert who fled his comfortable middleclass home to join IS – earning him a six-year jail sentence in his absence in Holland.
He sent his family photographs from Syria posing with a fake rifle and in military gear. Riedijk also asked for cash and boasted about marrying a 15-year-old British girl.
It 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.
He was sentenced alongside six others in July after ignoring pleas from his family and the Dutch authorities to return home.
Riedijk’s whereabouts are unknown following his surrender to a Syrian rebel group.
Begum, who married him in 2015, said they were separated as they fled the last IS stronghold in Baghuz.
Last night, the shutters at his parents’ smart semi-detached home in a suburb of Arnhem were drawn. But neighbours told of their surprise that the once ‘polite, friendly’ little boy, who would play football in the street with his sister, was a jihadi fighter.
One neighbour, who did not want to be named, said last night: ‘It is a shock, I did not know their son went to Syria. They are a nice family, lovely people. Their daughter is a beauty and studied science at university.
‘I remember him playing in the street when he was a child. I think the father is of Indonesian heritage. His mother is Dutch. This is a very middle-class area, it is not where you would expect to find jihadis. It is very sad for the family. I cannot believe it has happened to them. They are very nice... friendly family. I don’t know why it has happened.’
A Dutch court heard Riedijk’s father Lex, 56, 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 – who is heavily pregnant with his baby – 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 Englishspeaking fighter.
He was later imprisoned and tor-
‘They are a nice family’
tured 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 the ‘jihadi capital’ of The Netherlands.
At least 29 young men are believed to have been radicalised and more than six have travelled to Syria, but they typically hailed from the rougher areas of Marburg and Presikhaaf.
In contrast, 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 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.
Last year, 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.
Two others from the region are said to have since told their lawyers they want to return to Rotterdam, but remained trapped in northern Syria. If Riedijk returned, he would have to serve his jail sentence.
‘I remember him playing in the street’