Lowri Turner appeared on Jeremy Vine on 5 and was not convinced by Shamima Begun’s latest interview with Sky News where she said did not hate the UK. Ms Begum fled the UK in 2015 to join ISIS and recently announced she did not hate the country but hated her life as she left “very constricted”. However, Ms Turner did not sympathise with Ms Begum, believing her to be unrepentant in her interviews, and did not fall for her makeover to appear more Western.
Speaking on Jeremy Vine in 5, Ms Turner shared her thoughts on the Shamima Begum story after she revealed she did not hate the UK.
Ms Turner told the show: “Mr first reaction was just, really?
“I mean, you know, yes, she was very young when she went, she doesn’t come across as being sorry for any of it.
“She hasn’t really apologised. Her family aren’t talking to her about what’s going on.
“If she had a family who was fighting for her that she made a terrible mistake, her family aren’t talking to her so what’s going on there?”
Ahmed Ali, Ms Begum’s father, said Ms Begum said his daughter had “done wrong, whether or not she realised it”.
Mr Ali apologised to the British public in 2019 and wants to see Ms Begum return to the UK to face trial.
In her most recent interview with Sky News, however, Ms Begum revealed she does not currently speak to her family, stating: “I don’t think they failed me, in a way I failed them. When the time is right, I want to reconcile.”
“There are things that we don’t know that she was involved in, I think she made her bed.”
Mr Turner remarked she was “quite lucky” to not meet ISIS justice too.
Birmingham Live editor Graeme Brown also appeared on the show and believed Ms Begum was smart to know what to say to the media to try and win some support.
But Mr Brown added she had been “left out to dry” in some regards as her honesty often caught up with her.
He concluded by saying he wanted to see Ms Begum in a UK court so the concerns from the Home Office could be made public.