÷Dutch ISIS fanatic, 27, in plea for reunion with wife Begum ÷He ‘regrets’ joining terror group ... but not marrying 15-year-old

when my friend came and said there was a girl who was interested in marriage, I wasn’t really interested because of her age, but I accepted the offer anyway and we sat down and she seemed in a good state of mind.

‘It was her own choice. She asked to look for a partner for her, and I was invited. She was very young, maybe it would have been better for her to wait a bit but she didn’t, she chose to get married and I chose to marry her.’

Riedijk said he would ‘love’ to return to his country, adding: ‘I now understand the privileges that I lived with.

‘I understand that many people have a problem with what I did and I totally understand that.

‘I have to take responsibility for what I did, serve my sentence. But I hope to be able to return to a normal life and to raise a family.’

Riedijk has admitted fighting for IS for ‘a short period of time’, but said he now realises he and his wife both ‘definitely’ made a ‘mistake’ in joining the barbaric terror group.

He told Sky News: ‘Technically I was part of (the group). Luckily, I did not have direct involvement in... hurting or harming people.’

He added: ‘I very much regret what I did, that I lived a very miserable life in Islamic State and want to better myself and hopefully one day return to life as it was once, create a family.’

When asked what this meant for his wife, whom he last saw around six weeks ago, he replied: ‘Wherever she goes, I’m going to go. If my country wants me, I either take my wife or I stay with her.’

He said it ‘saddens’ him that Begum had lost her British citizenship, adding: ‘I understand any government’s fear of foreign

Appeal: Yago Riedijk, top, says he wants a ‘normal life’ with Shamima Begum and their son fighters or their wives. But to let sentence for joining a terror a young girl in her position who organisation if he returns to the has lost her children, who has Netherlands, while Begum will been through horrors in Islamic struggle to return to the UK State be left here to rot in a after being stripped of her camp. I don’t think that’s a very citizenship. humanitarian decision, no.’ Tasnime Akunjee, her family’s

He added: ‘I know (Shamima) lawyer, told The Guardian he is not a danger to anyone whatsoever... was preparing to fly out to meet but she made a mistake Begum so she could sign appeal and will have to live with the forms from the Home Office. consequences. He said: ‘We don’t want to

‘She never really did anything waste time trying to work for besides being a wife.’ her remotely. She needs a lawyer

Riedijk faces a six-year jail and we need her to sign these forms so that we can begin the appeals process.’

The runaway schoolgirl and her son Jerah were forced to flee Al-Hawl refugee camp last week after they were ‘threatened’ because she showed her face on television. Mr Akunjee said the move was due to ‘safety concerns around her and her baby’.

It was claimed she moved to Roj camp, a cleaner, more spacious and comparatively liberal camp with de-radicalised jihadi wives near the Iraqi border.