The Free Press Journal

Finally, ISIS bride Shamima Begum can go home

- ADITI KHANNA

London-born Islamic State (ISIS) recruit Shamima Begum on Thursday won the right to return to the UK and carry on her legal fight against the UK government's revocation of her British citizenshi­p on security grounds.

Bangladesh­i-origin Begum, now 20, was one of three schoolgirl­s who fled London to join ISIS in Syria in 2015.

Senior Court of Appeal UK judges, including Indian-origin Lord Justice Rabinder Singh, ruled that she must be allowed to re-enter and fight her case.

"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," said Lord Justice Julian Flaux, who was part of the three-judge bench with Lord Justice Singh and Lady Justice Eleanor King.

The judges also said that the national security concerns about her "could be addressed and managed if she returns to the United Kingdom".

The UK Home Office said the decision was "very disappoint­ing" and it would "apply for permission to appeal".

Begum, who was 15 years old when she secretly fled her home in east London in 2015 to join the terrorist group in Syria, is living in a camp run by Kurdish forces in northern Syria. The UK Court of Appeal said she had been denied a fair hearing because she could not make her case from the camp.

A special British immigratio­n tribunal ruled in February that she was a Bangladesh­i citizen by descent which meant that she had not been rendered homeless by former UK Home Secretary Sajid Javid's decision to revoke her British citizenshi­p in 2019.

The Special Immigratio­n Appeals Commission (SIAC), a specialist tribunal that hears challenges to decisions to remove British citizenshi­p on national security grounds, said Begum was in the situation she is challengin­g "as a result of her own choices, and of the actions of others, but not because of anything the Secretary of State (Javid) had done". Begum's solicitor, Daniel Furner of Birnberg Peirce, had said she would take her case to the Court of Appeal "as a matter of exceptiona­l urgency".

Begum had been tracked down in northern Syria in February last year by 'The Times' newspaper, when she was nine months pregnant with her third child, who later died.

Javid stripped her of citizenshi­p soon after on the grounds that she could claim Bangladesh­i nationalit­y through her parents.

His successor as the Home Secretary, Priti Patel, also backed that decision and ruled out the prospect of her return to the UK.

"We cannot have people who would do us harm allowed to enter our country - and that includes this woman," said Patel

Begum left the UK in February 2015 and lived under ISIS rule for more than three years. She became known as a so-called ISIS bride because she was married to Yago Riedijk, a Dutch ISIS fighter, soon after arriving in Syria.

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