Jihadi bride Shamima Begum’s return to Britain is put on HOLD after Government wins right to fight case at the Supreme Court
Jihadi bride Shamima Begum’s return to Britain has been put on hold after the Government has won the right to fight the case at the Supreme Court.
Begum, who left to join IS five years ago when she was 15, had been stripped of her British citizenship after she was found, nine months pregnant, in a Syrian refugee camp in February last year.
But earlier this month she won a legal challenge after judges ruled she had not been granted a ‘fair and effective’ appeal.
They said she should be allowed to return for a fresh hearing in a bid to overturn the Home Office’s decision.
The Government said it was ‘bitterly disappointed’ by the ruling and Mr Javid said he was ‘deeply concerned’ by the judgment.
The Home Office immediately announced its intention to seek permission to appeal against the ruling at the UK’s highest court.
This morning the government has been given permission to appeal to the Supreme Court.
Appeal: Begum challenged the decision made by then Home Secretary Sajid Javid saying she now feared for her life. Her third child Jarrah, pictured in her arms, died at three weeks old
In February this year, the Special Immigration Appeals Commission (SIAC) – a specialist tribunal which hears challenges to decisions to remove someone’s British citizenship on national security grounds – found Ms Begum ‘cannot play any meaningful part in her appeal and that, to that extent, the appeal will not be fair and effective’.
But SIAC ruled that ‘it does not follow that her appeal succeeds’ and Ms Begum’s challenge to the Home Office’s decision to refuse to allow her to enter the UK to effectively pursue her appeal was also rejected.
However, earlier this month, the Court of Appeal ruled that ‘the only way in which she can have a fair and effective appeal is to be permitted to come into the United Kingdom to pursue her appeal’.
Lord Justice Flaux – sitting with Lady Justice King and Lord Justice Singh – said: ‘Fairness and justice must, on the facts of this case, outweigh the national security concerns, so that the leave to enter appeals should be allowed.’
Jihadi bride Shamima Begum has been pictured today wearing jeans, a shirt and a blue hat as she walked through a Syrian refugee camp earlier this month
The judge found that ‘the national security concerns about her could be addressed and managed if she returns to the United Kingdom’.
Lord Justice Flaux also said: ‘With due respect to SIAC, it is unthinkable that, having concluded that Ms Begum could not take any meaningful part in her appeal so that it could not be fair and effective, she should have to continue with her appeal nonetheless.’
He added: ‘It is difficult to conceive of any case where a court or tribunal has said we cannot hold a fair trial, but we are going to go on anyway.’
Ms Begum was one of three schoolgirls from Bethnal Green Academy who left their homes and families to join IS, shortly after Sharmeena Begum – who is no relation – travelled to Syria in December 2014.
Kadiza Sultana and Amira Abase, then 16 and 15 respectively, and Ms Begum boarded a flight from Gatwick Airport to Istanbul, Turkey, on February 17 2015, before making their way to Raqqa in Syria.
Jihadi bride Shamima Begum, 20, is desperate to return to Britain five years after she voluntarily left to join ISIS in Syria – her British citizenship was revoked when she was found in a refugee camp after the caliphate fell last year
Ms Begum claims she married Dutch convert Yago Riedijk 10 days after arriving in IS territory, with all three of her school friends also reportedly marrying foreign IS fighters.
She told The Times last February that she left Raqqa in January 2017 with her husband but her children, a one-year-old girl and a three-month-old boy, had both since died.
Her third child died shortly after he was born.
More to follow…