She was married to the most wanted man in the world, the leader of ISIS.
In her first interview since her release from a Lebanese prison last year, Saja al-Dulaimi recalled to CNN Swedish affiliate Expressen TV what it was like to be Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s wife and what she fears for the daughter she bore with him.
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Expressen said it spoke to Dulaimi, 28, in a secret location near the border of Lebanon and Syria. Here’s what she said:
‘He was a family man’
Born in Iraq to an upper-middle-class conservative family, Dulaimi was married off to Baghdadi. He was not a bloodthirsty terrorist back then, she claims.How al-Baghdadi rose to ISIS leadership 02:14
“I married a normal person, a university lecturer,” she said. “He was a family man.”
She wasn’t his only bride; she had to share him with another wife. “He went to work and came home to his family,” Dulaimi said.
“He was great. He was the children’s ideal father. The way he was with children … he was a teacher — you know how teachers are. He knew how to deal with children, better than how to deal with the mother.”
But the two did not talk much like others couples do. The reason? He had a “mysterious personality,” Dulaimi answered.
And it was difficult being the second wife. “It’s hard for two wives to live together,” she said. Their union, she said, ended seven years ago.
