Shamima Begum said she joined the Islamic State group (IS) in search of the perfect family life, and it was in Raqqa, shortly after she arrived in Syria four years ago, that it arranged a marriage between her and Dutch armed extremist Yago Riedijk.
She was 15 at the time and he was 23. In the UK, he would be guilty of statutory rape.
He sits opposite me in a yellow plastic chair, 27 years old now, in a freezing interview room in a Kurdish detention centre. His guards have just removed his handcuffs.
If I see Shamima, he asks me to “tell her that I love her and have patience”.
“Hopefully soon we'll be together again and things will turn out all right – hopefully.”
It seems unlikely that will happen anytime soon.
Over the next hour, he paints a contradictory picture of an insulated home life, and a maelstrom of terror outside.
He said he kept the two separate and that his wife, despite her public statements to the contrary, was ignorant of IS's crimes.
“I was keeping her in a protected shell,” he said.
“I did not give her any information about what was going on outside. The problems that I was facing, the dangers.
“She was just sitting inside taking care of the household while I was trying to get by.
“Feed her,…
