Shamima Begum loses legal fight over reinstating her British citizenship
Shamima Begum has lost a legal battle over the decision to deprive her of
her British citizenship.
The 23-year-old had been at the centre of a dispute over whether she should be allowed to return to the UK.
Ms Begum and two other east London schoolgirls travelled to Syria to join the so-called Islamic State (IS) in 2015.
As a result, her British citizenship was revoked on national security grounds by former home secretary Sajid Javid.
The decision came after she was found nine months pregnant in a Syrian refugee camp in February 2019.
Ms Begum has been locked in a legal battle with the Government ever since.
Most recently, she and her team have challenged the Home Office at the Special Immigration Appeals Commission (SIAC) in an appeal process.
Mr Justice Jay gave his update this morning.
His verdict came after one Government minister claimed Ms Begum ‘clearly represents a threat’.
Veterans’ affairs minister Johnny Mercer, asked this morning about whether the 23-year-old should be allowed to return to the UK, told GB News: ‘That’s a decision for the Home Secretary and previous home secretaries.
‘Certainly, Sajid Javid when he was home secretary made the decision to revoke her citizenship. That’s a decision for them.
‘Of course she clearly represents a threat. But there is a lot of information in that case that is not in the public domain.
‘I don’t think it is worth discussing it in public. I think those decisions are made in the courts and in the Home Office, and I’m sure they’ll come to the right conclusion.’
During a five-day hearing in November, Ms Begum’s lawyers said that the Home Office had a duty to investigate whether she was a victim of trafficking before stripping her of her British citizenship.
The specialist tribunal heard said that she was ‘recruited, transported, transferred, harboured and received in Syria for the purposes of ‘sexual exploitation’ and “marriage” to an adult male’.
At a previous hearing in February 2020, SIAC ruled that the decision to remove her British citizenship was lawful as Ms Begum was ‘a citizen of Bangladesh by descent’ at the time of the decision.
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