• 3 months ago
Panorama 2020 E45
Transcript
00:00When I was so young, I didn't understand really any of it.
00:06It feels sad that they would do that to a child.
00:10This is Matthew.
00:11It's a, it's a dinosaur bicycle.
00:16His mum Sam.
00:17Hi, beautiful.
00:18And stepfather Musa.
00:19Okay, get off.
00:20Give Musa a big hug and tell him thank you so much.
00:21Thank you so much.
00:22You're welcome, buddy.
00:23You're the best.
00:25They left behind their comfortable life in America to live with the world's worst terror
00:38group.
00:39Was it loaded?
00:40Yes.
00:41How could they do this to a child?
00:44Matthew was the sweetest little boy you'll ever meet.
00:49I absolutely feel guilty for everything that he's been through.
00:54I don't know how I'll ever be able to make it up to him.
00:59This is the extraordinary story of one family's journey to ISIS and back.
01:06It's like thinking of someone that basically has your life in their grasp.
01:11You say one wrong thing and they could easily just kill you.
01:19This is the extraordinary story of one family's journey to ISIS and back.
01:31Northern Indiana.
01:33Matthew and his family used to live here.
01:38His auntie, Laurie, still does.
01:41She hadn't heard from her sister Sam Sally, Matthew's mum, for two years.
01:47I had a feeling that she was in some sort of trouble, but I didn't know what was going on.
01:55Then out of the blue, Laurie received an email from her.
02:00I really hope you can help me.
02:02Moussa brought me and the kids illegally to Syria.
02:06I have to be forward with you because I don't have a lot of time.
02:10Almost every day, five to ten bombs are dropped around us.
02:13The shockwaves are insane.
02:16Everything from rocks to metal sheets to glass shards.
02:19This could be my last time online.
02:26I love you. I miss you. I love you. I miss you.
02:29I love you. I miss you.
02:35Laurie had thought her sister Sam and family were in Texas.
02:39She was wrong.
02:42They were in the war-torn Syrian city of Raqqa,
02:46the self-declared capital of the Islamic State group, known then as ISIS.
02:55Sam was begging for help.
02:58She detached videos of her nine-year-old son, Matthew.
03:02They're deeply disturbing.
03:07Is that your new toy?
03:09Yes, it is. It's my new toy.
03:14700 of these metal balls.
03:16These are steel metal balls.
03:18Three kilos of TNT.
03:21One of the videos showed Matthew being forced to assemble a suicide belt.
03:27Off camera, you can hear his stepfather, Moussa, pushing Matthew to role-play an attack.
03:34What would you do if you hear a helicopter and American pigs come down to kidnap you and your mother?
03:42What are you going to do to them?
03:44I'm going to hide it under my shirt.
03:47I'm going to walk out and say,
03:50Come save me. Come save me.
03:53My name is Matthew. I'm American.
03:56Come save me. Come save me.
03:58And as soon as the helicopter comes on the ground,
04:03I'm going to pull my pen.
04:06You have to wait until they get really close, OK?
04:09Yeah, as soon as the helicopter comes down.
04:11OK.
04:15How could they do this to a child?
04:21Matthew is the sweetest little boy you'll ever meet.
04:25The video was the start of my four-year investigation
04:29to find out how this American boy and his family
04:32had ended up at the heart of the ISIS caliphate.
04:41By the winter of 2017, it was safe enough for me to travel to Syria.
04:46If you can confirm that you're on the other side before we cross, that would be great.
04:52Almost six years of war had left the country devastated and divided.
05:00I was heading to an area controlled by a Kurdish militia
05:03where I'd heard the family had been captured and detained.
05:13I made contact with a commander
05:15who had the authority to grant me access to their home.
05:22Should we meet in the morning?
05:25This could be really good. Potentially.
05:34The meeting went well.
05:36But it would be three months before I had the permission I needed
05:40to interview Sam Sally.
05:42And there were conditions.
05:44Are you happy for me to start?
05:46Yeah, let's do this. Yeah?
05:49The interview had to be on a military base
05:51and Kurdish guards would listen in.
05:54I mean, so obviously there's a long history to this
05:58and what I would like to do is sort of start at the beginning.
06:01OK.
06:02How did an American lady end up in Syria with ISIS?
06:09I don't even know where to start answering that question.
06:15I met my husband.
06:17Musa.
06:21About a year after we met each other, we got married.
06:27We'd been seeing each other and we were living together
06:29but we weren't married.
06:31Which shows you he was not a strict Muslim.
06:36Matthew was five years old.
06:39Musa was now his stepfather.
06:42He was from a wealthy Moroccan family,
06:44the Al-Hassanis.
06:47Musa came to the US to study
06:49and stayed on to work in the family business,
06:52a shipping company.
06:55Are you recording? Yeah.
06:57All right.
06:59For five years, we had a great life.
07:02We worked together, we did everything together.
07:05He was very relaxed.
07:08You can see my pregnant little wifey.
07:11I'm beautiful.
07:14Sam and Musa had a daughter together.
07:17Man, what a mess.
07:19Home movies posted online gave the impression of a happy family.
07:25He was really good at giving me attention,
07:27giving the kids attention.
07:29Hi!
07:30He was really good at it.
07:32There was not one dollar he wouldn't spend on us.
07:34Do you like it? Yeah.
07:36It's a dinosaur.
07:39It's a dinosaur bicycle.
07:43Matthew, are you riding?
07:45Yeah, I feel like it.
07:47All right, rev it up.
07:49Thank you, Musa.
07:51Thank you so much.
07:53He bought me nice things.
07:55I drove a BMW, he drove a Porsche.
07:57He wore nice clothes,
07:59took very good care of himself.
08:02After a while, he became bored, I think, with his life.
08:13One time he took off for three days.
08:15I found out from people in the neighbourhood
08:17he was on a cocaine binge.
08:25Sam then began to give me her account
08:27of how she and the family left America.
08:30It all started, she said,
08:32when Musa came up with a plan for a new life in Morocco.
08:39So my husband was like,
08:40OK, we're going to get the money together for this.
08:42And we get busy.
08:44He's got expensive watches, he's selling his expensive watches,
08:47he's sold his Porsche, he's sold the BMWs.
08:50This car is a good buy.
08:53Definitely for how much he's selling for.
08:57The family packed up their home and sold everything.
09:02It was March 2015.
09:04They had tens of thousands of dollars in cash and gold.
09:08They were planning to leave the US for good.
09:15My husband bought plane tickets for all of us.
09:19And we had a five-hour layover in Istanbul.
09:23So at the five-hour layover,
09:25my husband says they want to take a couple of weeks and see Turkey.
09:29And we stayed in Istanbul for a couple of days.
09:34Sam and Musa weren't travelling alone.
09:37One of Musa's brothers joined them.
09:42From the time we were in Turkey,
09:44he would spend a day with his brother,
09:46then spend a day with me, then spend a day with his brother.
09:49He would spend a day with his brother,
09:51then spend a day with me, then spend a day with his brother.
09:55He took us to the nicest restaurants, great shopping malls.
10:00He paid taxis to take us sightseeing around the cities.
10:03He was really romantic like this.
10:07They then took an 800-mile trip to Sanliurfa,
10:10a province close to the Syrian border.
10:13It was a well-known route for people
10:15who wanted to join the Islamic State group.
10:18But Sam said she thought they were still on holiday.
10:22It wasn't until Sanliurfa things started getting a little weird.
10:27My husband said we were getting in the car
10:30and we were going to the airport,
10:32and it was finished, our vacation was finished,
10:34we're going to Morocco.
10:36I said, OK.
10:39Instead, they headed to the border.
10:43I didn't know what was happening.
10:46I assumed that I was being lied to.
10:50In my bag I had all of our cash, all of my jewellery,
10:54all of our passports.
10:58Sam said Musa took the bag and her daughter.
11:02He takes her and he takes my hand back and he just goes.
11:06He knows, he knows I'm going to follow him.
11:08What am I going to do?
11:11I see my husband cross through a fence.
11:15And this time, like, my heart is beating so fast.
11:17I know, I know, I know what's happening now.
11:19And I'm thinking, OK, I'll just make it to the other side,
11:21take my bag and my kid and walk back across again.
11:24You know, it's just that simple.
11:28But it wasn't that simple.
11:30I made it across, I followed him.
11:34I was finding Sam's story that she'd been tricked by her husband
11:37difficult to believe.
11:40But with Kurdish guards monitoring our every word,
11:43if I pushed her on whether she'd gone willingly to ISIS,
11:46it could have put her and the children in danger.
11:49Did you know you were in Syria at this point?
11:51Yeah, yeah, I knew I was in Syria.
11:53And did you know who you were with? Yeah.
11:57How did you first come to know that you were with ISIS?
12:01Well, when you walk up and you see a bunch of guys with beards and guns,
12:04what else do you think?
12:14Sam and the family ended up in Raqqa,
12:17the capital of the Islamic State group.
12:21Public executions were common,
12:23but some of the group's propaganda painted a different picture.
12:32Sam said she tried to give the children some sense of normal life.
12:36Family photographs show them playing in local parks
12:39and swimming in the river.
12:44Soon after they arrived, Musa was sent for military training.
12:55He was away for months.
12:58It wasn't too long after he made it back from training camp,
13:01he had to go fight.
13:04Usually when he would go, he would go about a month at a time.
13:09He changed. He became very... He wasn't the same.
13:12My husband was not the same.
13:17He was foul, he was violent.
13:21He was everything he wasn't before.
13:26Musa was one of tens of thousands of foreigners
13:29who answered the call to defend and expand the caliphate.
13:34In 2015, almost 10 million people were living under its brutal regime.
13:45Sam told me that after a few months in Raqqa,
13:48she was pregnant and looking for a way out.
13:51I spent a lot of time with the neighbours.
13:53They're all really nice.
13:55They started to help me find smugglers to try to get me out.
13:59And...
14:02..I think I talked to the wrong one, maybe.
14:07Sam said in the winter of 2015,
14:09ISIS found out about her plan to escape and arrested her.
14:15I ended up in a torture prison in Raqqa.
14:21They kept telling me, we know you're a spy, this and that.
14:24I'm like, I'm not a spy, I just don't want to be here.
14:27ISIS had converted the city's football stadium into a prison.
14:32The changing rooms were used for torture.
14:37They hung me up from the ceiling by my wrist with handcuffs.
14:45They stripped my clothes, they beat me,
14:48they electrocuted me in my stomach.
14:51I was, at this point...
14:53..seven months pregnant with my son.
14:58Sam said she was sexually abused and told she'd be executed.
15:05I was just ready for it to be finished.
15:07Like, why drag it on, just finish it?
15:10This was the first part of Sam's story I was able to check.
15:15I went to the prison in Raqqa.
15:22Inside, the layout matched her description.
15:27It was a place where she was being held.
15:31She was being held in a cell.
15:34Inside, the layout matched her description.
15:39Islamic State Group documents also appear to corroborate Sam's story.
15:46They record the brutal interrogation of an American woman,
15:49Amusif al-Amerikiyah, the same Arabic name Sam was known by in Syria.
15:56I also spoke to a woman who admits she used to be a member of ISIS.
16:01She told me she'd been held in a cell next to Sam.
16:05She's asked us to conceal her identity
16:07because she fears reprisals from the terror group.
16:12When she was in the prison, they really tortured her so badly
16:16and we always heard her screaming.
16:19She was being held in a cell.
16:21They tortured her so badly and we always heard her screaming.
16:25We heard them beating her so badly and she's screaming I'm pregnant.
16:31They're beating her, they're tugging her by her hair
16:34and trying to move her from one room to another.
16:43After two months, they blindfolded me,
16:46they put me in a van and they dropped me off
16:49on the big street next to, like, maybe half a mile away from my house.
16:56In the middle of the night.
17:02After she was released from prison,
17:04Sam became involved in one of the darkest practices of ISIS,
17:08human slavery.
17:10What she told me next was even more upsetting.
17:14My husband said he was going to...
17:18buy...
17:20a girl.
17:23How did that come up?
17:25Well...
17:27if you want to know the truth of it, I couldn't stand to look at him
17:30and he's a man.
17:37He, like, tries to involve me in this.
17:39He tells me it's going to be to help me,
17:41she's going to just help me.
17:43She's going to be my friend because he knows I don't have any friends.
17:46I don't have anybody.
17:47And I think to myself, you know, this would be really great,
17:50you know, have somebody there with me.
17:53So I meet Suad
17:55and immediately I fall in love with her.
17:58Sam said she paid $10,000 for Suad.
18:01He was 17 at the time.
18:07I found her in Iraq, running a shop.
18:12I was in the market with the girls.
18:17They beat us up and dressed us up.
18:21I mean...
18:22The clothes weren't nice.
18:25Suad Ziyazidi,
18:26a religious minority persecuted by ISIS.
18:30There were mass executions.
18:32Many women and children were forced into slavery.
18:36I saw that she was tired and wanted to buy something.
18:41So that she could rest a bit.
18:46And she and Abu Yusuf came
18:50and bought me.
18:52I went to her house
18:55and she told me,
18:58she said, you're not my daughter,
19:01you're my daughter.
19:04Suad had been taken from her family
19:07and sold by one ISIS fighter after another.
19:11She thought she'd be safe in Sam's house.
19:13She wasn't.
19:29After he went to bed,
19:31I took Suad into a room, just me and her.
19:34And I took my son too,
19:36because I couldn't speak Arabic.
19:38There was no way I could...
19:41And I explained to her
19:43that I'm really sorry
19:45and that I'm going to do everything I can
19:47to get us out of this situation.
19:50But Sam couldn't protect Suad.
19:53And when Musa bought a second girl,
19:55who was just 14,
19:57both were abused by him.
20:00He would tell me,
20:01I'm going to take one of the girls upstairs.
20:04Don't come upstairs.
20:06Don't come upstairs.
20:09And then I had to go tell them
20:12which one it was,
20:14and I had to tell that one to go take a shower
20:16and be ready.
20:34Honestly, every time I went to tell her,
20:40she would cry and say,
20:42I don't want this to happen either,
20:45but I couldn't do anything.
20:51If you ever had to sit back and watch your husband rape
20:54a 14-year-old and a 17-year-old girl,
20:56you just...
20:58What do you do?
20:59Man, what do you do?
21:00I don't know.
21:05Whatever Sam's motive for getting involved with buying slaves,
21:09she'd become complicit in the rape of two children.
21:30The girls weren't the only slaves Sam and Musa owned.
21:33There was a young boy too.
21:35I wanted to find out what had happened to him.
21:44Sam and Musa had bought Aham from an ISIS commander.
21:47He's now being looked after by his uncle,
21:50who allowed me to film.
21:53Your English is amazing.
21:58Where did you learn your English?
22:01American family?
22:02Yeah.
22:04When Aham was four, ISIS attacked his town
22:07and took him as a slave.
22:09His mother is still missing.
22:13So I want to show you some pictures
22:16and I want to tell me if you recognise them.
22:20Do you recognise this lady?
22:25Yeah, that's her.
22:30Aham had fond memories of Sam.
22:34She was like my mother.
22:38I want to go next to her.
22:40You want to go next to her?
22:42Yeah.
22:44Do you want me to show you some other pictures?
22:46Yeah.
22:48So this is Yusuf?
22:49Yeah, that's Yusuf.
22:53Yusuf was the name ISIS had given to Matthew.
22:56Aham had become close to him.
23:01Can you tell me about Yusuf?
23:03Is he your friend?
23:05He's like my brother.
23:09What Aham told me about life in Sam's house
23:12wasn't what I was expecting
23:14from a boy who'd been sold into slavery.
23:20In 2017, ISIS was under attack.
23:25An international coalition was on a mission
23:28to destroy the caliphate.
23:38British and American planes
23:40were regularly striking targets inside Raqqa.
23:47And Musa was back from the front line.
23:50Now it's all about weapons and it's all about killing
23:53and it's watching videos of people's heads
23:55getting cut off and laughing about it.
23:57And...
23:58Did you ever try to show that to any of the kids?
24:00All the time.
24:02All the time.
24:04Then he went further.
24:06Musa was making his own videos with Matthew.
24:09Without a single mistake.
24:12And take apart this loaded AK.
24:14In less than a minute.
24:16And take apart this loaded AK.
24:18In less than a minute.
24:20And put it back together in less than a minute.
24:23Ready, set, go.
24:27Watch out, might be loaded.
24:31Sam said Matthew spent days practising for the videos.
24:37Was it loaded?
24:38Yes.
24:39If Matthew wasn't doing something proper,
24:41he was...
24:42Like, I saw him with my own eyes
24:44and I watched him straight in the face like a man.
24:49These are the videos that Sam sent to her sister Laurie.
24:52OK.
24:53In less than a minute.
24:54I'll put it back together.
24:55Go ahead.
24:57Sam told me they were intended to put pressure on her family
25:00back in America to send money.
25:03She said she thought it could pay for a people smuggler
25:06to help her and the children escape.
25:11How did you feel watching Matthew do that?
25:13Were you watching Matthew?
25:14Yeah.
25:15I was...
25:18It didn't really matter to me.
25:20It didn't really matter because I thought we were going home.
25:23I thought it was the end of it.
25:25You know, if he could just be strong this little bit,
25:28if he could just be strong this little bit,
25:30we would go home.
25:31That would be it.
25:33But it would force like a man.
25:37He put in so much effort because he was sure we were going home.
25:41But then later we found out that that wasn't the case.
25:45Her family couldn't send money because it would have broken the law.
25:57Nice.
26:11Earlier this year, I met Matthew in America.
26:15He's had counselling and support to help him deal with all that's happened.
26:20You only have to talk about what you want to talk about, Matt.
26:22At the end of the day, like, you're in charge.
26:25Yeah, that's OK. I'm good.
26:27Now he's decided to tell his story.
26:32When we first arrived in Rucca, we were in the city.
26:36It was pretty noisy.
26:38Gunshots normally.
26:41And once in a while, a random explosion.
26:45Like, far away, though.
26:47So we didn't have much to worry about.
26:50What's it like seeing ISIS around you?
26:53Now, normally, when you're talking to someone,
26:56you don't necessarily have to really think about what you're saying.
26:59But it's like thinking of someone that basically has your life in their grasp.
27:05Say one wrong thing and they could easily just kill you.
27:12I asked Matthew about the videos his stepfather made him record.
27:16If you said no to me, so I don't want to do this, what would have happened?
27:21I don't really know.
27:24Like, I don't know.
27:26Because I was generally pretty obedient as far as that goes.
27:31Like, at that point, I could already tell that he was starting to lose it.
27:36Like, he was mentally unstable. Very, very mentally unstable.
27:39Was he ever angry towards you?
27:42More than enough.
27:44Do you feel comfortable telling me what he would do, or would you rather not?
27:48I'd rather not.
27:50That's OK.
27:52It was pretty bad.
27:53Yeah?
27:54Yeah.
28:00The war against ISIS was intensifying.
28:03But the fighting was getting closer to Sam and the family.
28:06She now had four children, two born in Raqqa.
28:10Sam began sending voice messages to her sister Laurie in America.
28:15Say, how are you?
28:16How are you?
28:18Say, can't wait to see you.
28:20Can't wait to see you.
28:22Say, make me food.
28:24Make me food.
28:26Say, I'm a poop head.
28:28I'm a poop head.
28:37The messages were the only way Laurie knew they were all still alive.
28:44Hey, Laurie.
28:46I just want to say again I love you and I miss you.
28:49I don't know when I'll be able to talk to you next, it may be a while.
28:52I don't, again, I don't get to go to the internet.
28:55So, I can only send you messages like this.
29:07By June, the fighting was inside the city.
29:18Keep making your prayers for us.
29:20You don't understand, here, instead of just leaving us be,
29:25all the time we hear the jets and bombs and it's part of daily life here, you know.
29:31I don't know when I'll be able to talk to you next, it may be a while.
29:36I don't know when I'll be able to talk to you next, it may be a while.
29:43Then, the messages stopped.
29:52Our neighbour, four-storey building, got bombed.
29:56The whole place fell into our house.
29:58While you were inside?
30:00While we were inside.
30:02It was around seven o'clock at night.
30:04You get blown, like it might hit the wall.
30:07God, I can't see anything, it's smoky, you can't breathe, the gunpowder, it's intense.
30:15I was just feeling my way out of the area because it was so dusty I couldn't see anything.
30:21Trying to feel for metal.
30:23And once I felt metal that wasn't hot enough to literally burn my skin,
30:28then I knew that it was our car.
30:29My kids, I just knew they were dead.
30:32I knew they were dead.
30:34The bomb literally fell probably 20 feet away from them.
30:40The whole wall in their bedroom was blown in, like you could see where the old building was
30:46and a couple of feet away from them, people died.
30:49And they were fine.
30:52It's amazing they're not dead.
30:54This is what was left of the family home.
30:56A photo taken in the aftermath of the bombing
30:59shows Matthew and his sister cradling a cat in the rubble.
31:04That cat.
31:06That cat survived two bombings.
31:10I swear to God that cat's immortal.
31:13It lived with us for a really, really, really long time actually.
31:18Like the whole time we were there it almost lived with us the entire time.
31:22That cat's immortal.
31:28Raqqa was in ruins.
31:31But the Islamic State group was still predicting victory.
31:35Only this time it was Matthew who was forced to deliver its message.
31:46The fifth day of the war,
31:49the video made headlines around the world.
31:54My message to Trump, the puppet of the Jews.
31:57Allah has promised us victory and he has promised to defeat.
32:00This battle is not going to end in Raqqa or Mosul.
32:03It's going to end in your lands.
32:05By the will of Allah we will have victory.
32:08So get ready for the fighting has just begun.
32:19It was Musa and his brother that were forcing the kids to do this.
32:25Crazy, intense video of this American kid with his Yazidi friends.
32:30This would be a great propaganda.
32:32The Yazidi friend was Aham,
32:35the little boy Sam and Musa had bought as a slave.
32:39When I met him he wanted to show me the video.
32:48He was like my brother.
32:50He was standing between Yusuf and Islam.
33:18If we don't talk he's going to kill us.
33:28So how did it come about?
33:30Did you want to do it?
33:32No. I just wanted to go on with my life.
33:35Just wanted to get back home, do my thing.
33:39Sounds like you worked out that you had to do this to keep going.
33:45Yeah.
33:46Some people would have seen the ISIS propaganda video of you.
33:50What was it you would want people to understand?
33:53That not all kids actually want to do that.
33:56That a lot of times they're forced.
34:11Soon after the video was released by ISIS,
34:14Musa was dead.
34:16Apparently him and a couple of guys felt brave
34:19and they started to try to advance
34:23and a drone caught him, bombed him.
34:27So he was killed in a drone strike?
34:29Yeah, I think so.
34:33A neighbour broke the news to Matthew.
34:36He told us that he had died
34:38and that all he had found was a little bit of his beard and his boots.
34:43And I was happy.
34:46Because I didn't like him.
34:48Obviously.
34:50And I was happy.
34:52Like, I don't think I should have been because a person died,
34:56but I was.
34:58We were all crying out of joy.
35:03He was ready to die.
35:05He was ready to die.
35:09So I was just waiting for that day.
35:12I was making the same prayer he was.
35:15He was praying to die, I was praying for him to die.
35:19I felt like the noose had been taken off my neck.
35:22I felt like now I'm calling the shots.
35:25Nobody's going to tell me what to do anymore.
35:27I'm calling the shots and this is the beginning of the end.
35:39The battle for Raqqa was over.
35:42Thousands were dead.
35:44And the Islamic State group was in retreat.
35:50It gave Sam and the family a chance to escape.
35:54They found a people smuggler who could help.
35:58When we left, we made a deal with this guy.
36:02We still had some gold bars, they weren't that big,
36:04but they were worth a couple thousand.
36:06So they'll give you this.
36:08And then he was like, OK, my buddy here will help you.
36:11But you have to be quiet.
36:13So then we got in our positions.
36:19The family were driven out of ISIS territory in the back of a truck.
36:23Matthew was hidden inside a barrel.
36:29We hit a couple checkpoints.
36:31It was pretty scary because then I got nervous
36:34and I had to just not move or even make a sound.
36:37I had to slow my heartbeat down because of how I was sitting.
36:39Because if I even moved around just a little bit,
36:42I would just fall because I was right on the edge.
36:48What would have happened if ISIS had found you?
36:51We would just all get killed.
36:53It was just that simple.
36:56The journey to safety across the Syrian desert took several hours.
37:03The moment Sam and the children arrived in Kurdish territory
37:07was filmed by a local TV crew.
37:09Sam.
37:23There's Sam.
37:25My sister looks bad.
37:31That's Matthew.
37:32I just wish I was there. I just want to give them all a hug.
37:41I just hope my sister knows how much I love her.
37:48And how much this whole thing has just killed me.
37:58And that she's brave. She's brave for getting out.
38:04I don't agree with what she did, but I just hope she knows I love her.
38:13I wish I was there.
38:28Sam and her family were put into a Kurdish detention camp.
38:34It turns out I wasn't the first person to reach her.
38:38American intelligence officers had already interrogated Sam about her involvement with ISIS.
38:46There will be people who feel you're an American who was with arguably the world's worst terrorist organisation.
38:55What would you say to that?
39:04If they could live a day in my shoes, they would understand why I don't care if I go to prison or not.
39:11If they want to put me in prison, they can put me in prison for a year, 50 years, it doesn't matter to me.
39:16As long as I get to see my kids and I know my kids are good.
39:20I didn't know what to make of Sam. The details of her life in Raqqa checked out.
39:25But I still found it hard to believe she'd been tricked into going there.
39:30If she was lying to me, that meant she'd knowingly put her children's lives in danger.
39:41I headed back to America to find out more about her life before ISIS.
39:50Sam grew up in rural Arkansas.
39:54Her father, Rick, was a truck driver.
40:01Well, Josh, this is our family home.
40:04Our mansion, as we'd call it.
40:07Over here is the swing set where Samantha and Laurie, we built for them back in 92.
40:14Come on in the house.
40:18Here's my wife, Lisa, doing the morning dishes.
40:22Here's a picture of Lisa and I, Samantha and Laurie, when they were a little bitty.
40:28Here's a picture when they got a little older.
40:31That's Samantha.
40:33That's Laurie.
40:35They were beautiful little children.
40:38We had a lot of fun together.
40:41Raised in a Christian family.
40:44We had a lot of fun together.
40:47Raised in a Christian home.
40:52They were normal kids.
40:54And everybody liked them.
40:56They took care of each other.
40:58They protected each other.
41:00They were brought up to be very close to each other.
41:04And when they got older, they, especially Samantha, kind of went off the deep end.
41:09Her whole demeanor changed.
41:11She would ever give her the most.
41:14So she would be with this guy for a while and she'd meet somebody that can offer her a little more money.
41:21She'd go with that guy. She'd break it off with this guy and go with this guy.
41:27Half the time you can't tell what the truth is and what's not the truth.
41:32So you have to read between the lines.
41:36I told Rick what Sam had said to me in Syria, that Musa had tricked her into going there.
41:42I believe that she knew where she was going.
41:47You don't think she was tricked?
41:49No.
41:50At all?
41:51No, I don't. I don't think she was tricked.
41:53I feel she went over there voluntarily.
41:57Her children are involved.
42:00I feel sorry for the children.
42:06I left Arkansas and headed to Idaho to meet Matthew's dad, Juan, a former navigator in the U.S. Navy.
42:15It was elk hunting season and he invited me to join him and his brother.
42:21There's a herd over there.
42:27Juan and Sam met 15 years ago. He told me what she was like back then.
42:32When I first met Sam, she was very adventurous, outgoing.
42:37She had fast cars, motorcycles.
42:40Sam was real big onto, like, stunts, trying to pop Willie on her motorcycle or racing cars.
42:47She was just very adventurous.
42:50Three years after Matthew was born, Juan and Sam split up.
42:55Juan continued to see Matthew regularly.
42:58Did you ever go hunting with Matthew?
43:01Matthew went with me about two times and slept the whole time in the blind.
43:07He didn't come out into woods like these. I took him to a deer blind and he just slept.
43:12Was it fun?
43:14Always fun.
43:16It's irreplaceable time.
43:20I asked Juan if he thought Sam was the sort of person who could have been tricked.
43:25No, I've actually seen the opposite where Sam uses everything that she has in her ability to get what she wants instead.
43:33Like what?
43:34Her personality, her looks and just her intelligence.
43:39Juan says she duped him into letting Matthew leave the country by lying about where they were going.
43:47She doesn't practice Islam. She doesn't seem to be an extremist. Why would she go to Syria?
43:54For the thrill. Just to go and to be around the environment and because it probably just to her seemed like something fun to do.
44:05Do you really think she would go all the way to ISIS for the thrill of it?
44:11Yeah, I do.
44:14Sam and the children had been in this detention camp in northern Syria for five months.
44:20Conditions had deteriorated, food was scarce and Sam was getting increasingly desperate.
44:27I'm sending this voice message. Sorry, I've lost my voice but I just want you to know that things are getting really tough here.
44:34I'm sending this voice message. Sorry, I've lost my voice but I just want you to know that things are getting really tough here.
44:41And I don't have any way to provide for my kiddos and things are hard.
44:49We just need to get out of here. We need to get out of here. We need to get out of here quick.
44:55Then in July 2018, Sam and the children were suddenly put on a US military flight out of the country.
45:02Then in July 2018, Sam and the children were suddenly put on a US military flight out of the country.
45:07The moment they touched down in America, Sam was arrested.
45:13She was taken to jail while Matthew and the other children were looked after by child services.
45:22When you first came back to America, what did it feel like?
45:32It's like being in tight clothes or tight socks and shoes all day and then just taking it off and just feeling nice and just chilling in a hot bath.
45:45That's what it felt like. Like sweet relief. It felt good.
45:57Sam was charged with providing material support for terrorism.
46:01The FBI accused her of smuggling cash and gold as part of a conspiracy to help her husband and his brother, Abdul Hadi, join the Islamic State group.
46:12They also said she'd bought military-style binoculars and a riflescope.
46:18Your video visit is about to begin. Notice, this video call may be monitored and recorded.
46:25From behind bars while awaiting trial, Sam agreed to speak to me.
46:30Did you provide material support for terrorism?
46:33No, I don't believe I did.
46:36Did you provide funding for terrorism?
46:40Absolutely not.
46:42Did you provide tactical gear?
46:45No, absolutely not.
46:48Did you support Musa and Abdul Hadi to join ISIS?
46:52Not to support them, no.
46:55What do you mean by that?
46:57I didn't support them to join them, no.
47:00Did I support my husband and his stupid ventures? Yes.
47:03But had I known what he was doing, I would not have supported it.
47:11Despite Sam's claims, I was beginning to find out more about what had been going on inside the family home before they left.
47:20I tracked down another of Musa's brothers, Jason, who said he'd witnessed Musa's growing interest in ISIS.
47:30What do you think drew Musa and Abdul Hadi to Islamic State?
47:36To be honest, I don't know what really drove them to go there.
47:39To this day, we all in our family ask why they left.
47:43Out of the blue, my brother Musa started talking about ISIS.
47:47So he was kind of, like, obsessed with them.
47:51Did Sam want to go there?
47:53To be honest, I don't know.
47:56According to Jason, his brothers weren't just talking about ISIS.
48:00They were watching propaganda films too.
48:04You would go and watch those with them?
48:06Sometimes, when I visit, sometimes they show me some videos, yes.
48:10Were these videos ever depicting executions?
48:13Yes, they were.
48:15We've been told quite clearly that Musa, Abdul Hadi and Jason were watching ISIS videos in your house.
48:26Did you know that was happening?
48:28No, but it's possible. I mean, when they did their thing, most of the time I wasn't around.
48:35You know, if I was serving dinner or something, then I would have been there.
48:38But if they were all there in the house, I probably would have left.
48:43I probably would have gone shopping or something.
48:47I then found out that in the months before the family left the US, Sam had made three trips to Hong Kong.
48:54Each time, she put cash and gold in safety deposit boxes, at least $30,000 worth.
49:03When I spoke to her again, she said it was money for their new life in Morocco,
49:07claiming it was stashed in Hong Kong because Musa wanted to avoid paying tax.
49:15Did it not seem odd to you, though, to just, I mean, you can take the cash straight to Morocco,
49:20you could bank transfer it, you could maybe send it to one of the family members, like Musa's father?
49:26Right. This is the part I can't really get into, but I understand what you're saying.
49:32The simple fact is that he was very paranoid, and if you look at anything that he ever did in his past,
49:39you would always find strange irregularities that he would go through because of his paranoia.
49:45So this is something I was completely accustomed to, it was something I tried to talk him out of, but he was insistent.
49:52Sam's story was starting to unravel.
49:57A friend of hers remembered a conversation they'd had five months before the family left the US.
50:03She agreed to let me record an audio interview.
50:07What she had to say completely undermined Sam's credibility.
50:11There was a conversation that we had.
50:14Sam was telling us that, yeah, that Musa had felt that he was being called to join,
50:20I remember she said, join the Holy War or something like that.
50:25And did she seem like she was up for that, or was she against it?
50:31I think it just, it just was like a crazy idea that he had said or something.
50:36When did you first become aware that either Musa or Abdul Hadi might want to join ISIS?
50:45I can't answer that.
50:55I don't know.
50:57I don't know.
50:59I don't know.
51:01MUSIC
51:10Then, after more than a year of talking to Sam in jail, her story changed.
51:16She cut a deal with the prosecution and pleaded guilty to financing terrorism.
51:21MUSIC
51:25You've spent years saying that you are innocent of everything.
51:31Right. It was the only plea deal that they could have offered with the T word
51:37that didn't put the guidelines at a lifetime sentence.
51:43Do you understand?
51:45And by doing this you've admitted that you are, you're guilty of terrorism, right?
51:49Well, OK, it states that I'm guilty of supporting my husband.
51:58It states specifically that my husband and his brother were ISIS members
52:05or wanted to be ISIS members.
52:08But it separated me enough from that, I believe, that I could deal with that.
52:15Despite signing the plea deal, Sam was still struggling to admit her guilt.
52:20Then that means you knowingly provided support for ISIS,
52:25who have committed some of the worst atrocities we've seen in decades.
52:31And you've supported that.
52:36You're putting me in a really difficult spot here.
52:40I mean, I don't know how to answer your question.
52:46As far as my plea agreement goes, yes, I did.
52:50If I don't admit to exactly what they're saying in that plea agreement,
52:55they will take the plea agreement back away from me, OK?
52:58So, yes, I knew. I knew it.
53:01I knew exactly that he was going to fight for ISIS and that he was a terrorist.
53:05So you have supported terrorism, then?
53:08Yes.
53:13There was one final revelation in the case against her
53:17that prosecutors described as horrifying.
53:21Sam had told me it had been Musa's idea to film Matthew assembling a suicide belt.
53:27Now it turns out she'd been much more involved.
53:31Do you accept that the choices you made
53:35put your children through some of the worst experiences
53:40you could imagine for a child to have for years?
53:43I accept that I was unable to make the decisions to protect them better.
53:50I was unable to make the decisions to protect them.
53:54I was unable to make the decisions to protect them.
53:57I was unable to make the decisions to protect them better.
54:07Sam has now been sentenced.
54:10The prosecution said we may never know
54:13why Sam helped her husband and brother-in-law join ISIS.
54:17They accepted there was no evidence she wanted to harm the United States.
54:22The defence argued she'd been coerced by her controlling husband, Musa.
54:28The judge said Sam wouldn't have been in court if it hadn't been for him.
54:35That didn't save her from prison.
54:38She was given six and a half years.
54:45Sam's seven-year-old daughter and two younger children, born in Raqqa,
54:49are now living with her parents, Rick and Lisa.
54:53Dear Mum, I do not blame you and Dad for anything.
54:58All of my life I have filled with stupid decisions.
55:01I hope you and Dad can forgive lifelong transgressions I have caused.
55:06I hope if I ever get out of here, I hope I'll be able to come see you
55:11and begin mending our relationship.
55:14I love you, Sam.
55:15It really touched our hearts to get a letter directly from her.
55:19It's been a long, long time.
55:21Thankfully she's back and hopefully one day she'll be able to come home.
55:40It's more than two years since Matthew was rescued from a Kurdish detention camp.
55:46He's doing well and now living with his father, Juan.
55:54First day I saw my dad, I was happy. Very happy.
56:01Did you ever imagine after all that time you'd be back here?
56:05No. I'll be honest, I never did.
56:09You never thought you'd come home?
56:11No. They always said one day you'll be back home, one day you'll be back home.
56:15But it never happened.
56:17So I was like, yeah, I'm just never coming home.
56:21It feels sad that they would do that to a child. That's how I feel.
56:29What's the best thing about being home?
56:31Everything. Just everything. Like there isn't a best part.
56:36Yeah, there isn't. It's just being here. It's nice.
56:48I hope you didn't catch a heart attack.
56:51I didn't get anything.
56:53And what would you want people to understand about what you lived through?
56:57That you can pull through. That's really it. No matter how bad the situation is, you'll always get through it.
57:17It all happened and it's done. It's all behind me now.
57:27It's all behind you now.
57:57It's all behind you now.