Man seeks return with ISIS bride

LONDON — The Dutch man who married a British teenager after she ran away to join the Islamic State group said he wants to return home to the Netherlands with Shamima Begum and their newborn son.

Yago Riedijk, 27, told the BBC from a Kurdish-run detention center that he met Begum within days of her arrival in Syria when she was 15. He said in an interview aired Sunday that the marriage was “her own choice.”

When asked if marrying a 15-year-old was appropriate, he said: “To be honest, when my friend came and said there was a girl who was interested in marriage, I wasn’t that interested because of her age, but I accepted the offer anyway.”

Riedijk said that while he fought for the Islamic State, he now rejects the group and tried to leave it.

Begum fled east London with two other friends to travel to Syria to marry Islamic State fighters in 2015 at a time when the group’s online recruitment program lured many impressionable young people to its self-proclaimed caliphate.

Begum, now 19, resurfaced at a refugee camp in Syria and recently told reporters she wanted to go home. However, Home Secretary Sajid Javid has revoked her citizenship — even while saying he wouldn’t make a decision that would render a person stateless. Begum’s family has insisted she isn’t a dual citizen. The case will be argued in the courts.