‘ Jihadi bride’ back in the UK
Mum repatriated, put up in £44 a night Travelodge & now on benefits
A BRITISH mum-of-nine who was accused of becoming a jihadi bride is back in the UK enjoying a benefits-funded summer on a canal boat.
Natalie Bracht denies she once led an all female Islamic State unit in Syria and says she is resigned to being forever treated as a terror suspect “without conviction”.
Bracht, 45, who has claimed Universal Credit, says she hopes to make a living as a busker.
She had been staying in Germany, where she holds dual nationality by birth but after Covid-19 took hold she was repatriated and put up in a £44-a-night Travelodge.
She has now moved on to a barge. The revelation comes just weeks after the controversy over a legal battle by IS teen Shamima Begum to regain her British citizenship after fleeing to the Middle East in 2015.
This week Bracht told The Sunday People that reports two years ago which said she had joined Islamic State in Syria were untrue.
But she admitted she had been involved with the controversial campaign group Cage – which once described Brit IS executioner Jihadi John as a “beautiful young man”.
Two years ago it was said Bracht had travelled in 2014 to Syria, where she married Celso Rodrigues Da Costa, 31, an IS fighter from London.
Stronger
It was also claimed she was among a group of Western women held in Kurdish-controlled camps in northern Syria. Bracht said: “It has affected my family. I’ve been treated like a terror suspect.”
She added: “It looks like I have to have a new identity and the stories must be put straight.
“It’s not for me. I can live with this. I have accepted I am a full-time terror suspect without conviction.
“It either breaks you or makes you stronger. In my case it has made me stronger.”
Born in Bielefeld, Germany, on a British Army camp, Natalie was living in Heidelberg when Covid hit.
After visiting the British consulate in Dusseldorf she was given a ticket to board a British Airways flight from Frankfurt to London on April 3.
But when she landed she says she was stopped and “interrogated” by Special Branch for more than three hours under Schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act 2000.
Bracht continued: “They were asking me about what I thought about Brexit, how I think about elections, what I think about vaccines.
“They asked me where I had stayed in Syria. I had to tell them a couple of times, ‘Guys, I wasn’t in Syria.’”
She claims she is being supported by the Helping Households Under Great Stress organisation – set up to help “Muslim households impacted by counter-terrorism, national security and extremism-related laws, policies and procedures”.
And she said that in around
2012 she began volunteering as an interpreter for Cage.
She said she began translating letters for terror suspects held in prisons across the world because she had concerns about rising Islamophobia and a “modern-day witch hunt”.
And she said she was given access to documents relating to Anwar al-awlaki, a radical American Muslim cleric of Yemeni descent.
Before he was killed in a US drone strike in Yemen on 30 September 2011, he was linked to a series of attacks and plots across the world, including the 9/11 atrocity in the US. Natalie said: “It’s a modern witch hunt. These are the oppressed people.
“They are in prison, then they are free again and then they are not convicted but treated for the rest of their lives as full-time terror suspects. They never had convictions.”
She also s aid s he sympathised with terror bride Begum.
Natalie said: “This girl was brainwashed on the internet, the intelligence services didn’t prevent her from leaving the country.
SYRIA BOUND: Begum, right and above, with two pals in 2015
“She was only 15 years disorder and saying the old – this should be police had “serious dealt with by child concerns regarding the protection.” children’s welfare”.
KILLER: Notorious IS
Natalie also said she She was found 12
executioner Jihadi John
had met Pierre Vogel, a months later in Munich. 41-year-old who converted to Islam Tasnime Akunjee, Natalie’s legal in 2001 who is considered one of representative who also represents Germany’s most prominent Islamist Begum, yesterday said he was looking preachers. at a possible defamation claim against
Natalie first hit the headlines in a US firm that is said to have published 2008, when she ran away from home her name as a terror suspect. in Sunderland with her then five Yesterday Cage said it had no daughters, fearing they were about to record of Bracht volunteering. be taken into care. The Home Office said: “We do not
Authorities released an appeal comment on individual cases.” stating that Natalie had a personality