London - A teenager who was stripped of her British citizenship after leaving London to join the Islamic State group has asked the government to re-evaluate her case and show "a bit more mercy" as she seeks to return to Britain.
Shamima Begum, 19, left to join IS when she was 15 but now wants to come back. Her British citizenship was revoked on security grounds.
"I would like them (British politicians) to re-evaluate my case with a bit more mercy in their heart, you know," she told Sky News. Asked whether she could change or be rehabilitated, she said: "I am willing to change."
Begum was found in a detention camp in Syria last week, and her fate has sparked a dispute over the ramifications of leaving a 19-year-old mother with a jihadist fighter's child to fend for herself in a war zone.