Father of schoolgirl who joined Isis says she 'should be forgiven' and allowed to return to UK

‘They should be allowed to learn from their mistakes – they are no threat to us,’ says Hussen Abase

The father of one of the three Bethnal Green schoolgirls who ran away to join Isis in Syria has said he believes she represents no threat to the UK and urged the government to allow her to return.

Hussen Abase, father of Amira Abase, said his daughter made a “mistake” when she left Britain in 2015 at the age of 15.

He blamed Isis’ social media propaganda for enticing his daughter to go to Syria with friends Shamima Begum, then 15, and Kadiza Sultana, then 16.

“Teenagers don’t contemplate things, they can be easily tricked,” Mr Abase told Sky News on Thursday. He said they “should be forgiven” by the British authorities.

His comments come after Begum, now 19, heavily pregnant and being held in a Syrian refugee camp, revealed she is desperate to return to the UK.

While Sultana is believed to have been killed in a 2017 airstrike, Abase is unaccounted for after recent a bombing in Baghouz, eastern Syria.

“As a father I would say to the British government please let the girls back into the country and give them some kind of teaching,” Mr Abase, 52, told The Daily Telegraph.

“They were just teenagers when they left. They should be allowed to learn from their mistakes. They are no threat to us.”

Mr Abase came to Britain as a refugee from Ethiopia in 1999 and now lives in Stepney, east London.

He said he has not seen or heard from his daughter since 2015, when she left for school one day and did not return home.