Shamima Begum: 'She should come back' says journalist who interviewed her in a prison camp

Shamima Begum: 'She should come back' says journalist who interviewed her in a prison camp
Shamima Begum interview
Sophia Miller

By Sophia Miller


Published: 15/06/2021

- 16:59

Updated: 15/06/2021

- 17:12

“I really don’t think that she understood what she was getting into,” said journalist Andrew Drury to Simon McCoy and Alex Phillips.

A journalist who interviewed Shamima Begum in a prison camp, says he thinks she should return to the UK. Appearing on McCoy & Phillips on GB News, journalist Andrew Drury said he thought she was "simplistic" when she fled to Syria to join ISIS aged 15, supporting Begum's claim that she was just a "dumb kid."

"My opinion was the same as everybody else. I thought she should rot there. But after two hours talking with her, walking the camp, I totally changed my mind," he said. "I think she should come back to the UK, spend time a lot of time in prison. . . . But I don't think it should be there."


When asked whether Shamima Begum could be a threat, Drury responded: "She most defintely couldn't be a threat," later adding “I really don’t think that she understood what she was getting into.”

Begum and two other east London schoolgirls travelled to Syria in February 2015. She married an ISIS fighter when out in Syria and has since been arrested and is currently detained in the Al-Roj camp run by the Syrian Democratic Forces.

She has repeatedly made calls to be admitted back into the UK, but lost her recent legal battle after the Supreme Court ruled in the Home Office's favour.

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