Isis bride loses passport appeal that’s cost UK £5m... but STILL vows to fight on
JUDGES found Shamima Begum made a ‘calculated decision’ to travel to Syria and join Isis as they unanimously rejected an appeal over the removal of her British citizenship.
Experts said the 24-year-old terror bride could now apply to take her claim to the Supreme Court – which could take the total cost of her legal challenges to more than £7.5million – though her case might not be accepted.
Baroness Carr, sitting with Lord Justice Bean and Lady Justice Whipple, said in a summary of the Court of Appeal’s decision: ‘Ms Begum may well have been influenced and manipulated by others but still have made a calculated decision to travel to Syria and align with Isil [Islamic State].’
The Londoner was found in a Syrian refugee camp in 2019, four years after she travelled to the country as a 15-year-old, and the then-home secretary Sajid Javid stripped her of citizenship on national security grounds.
Begum lost her first appeal against the decision at the Special Immigration Appeals Commission last year.
After yesterday’s ruling, Begum’s solicitor, Daniel Furner, vowed that her legal team was ‘not going to stop fighting until she does get justice and until she is safely back home’.
But given the decision of the three judges to reject all her appeal grounds was unanimous, her prospects of successfully having her case heard at the Supreme Court appear bleak.
International law specialist Toby Cadman said: ‘I am sure that her lawyers will consider this but it is not an automatic right to be heard in the Supreme Court and the criteria is naturally very strict, so, given the decision was unanimous, it is unlikely the case would be accepted.’
If Begum loses a Supreme Court appeal she could then apply to the European Court of Human Rights, but Mr Cadman said her chances of success in Strasbourg are even slimmer.
Begum’s legal challenges are thought to have cost the taxpayer about £5million already, and if her case ever reached the Supreme Court, this figure could soar to more than £7.5million, according to legal costs expert Paul Fulcher.
‘Some KCs at this level can charge up to £10,000 a day,’ Mr Fulcher said.
‘And they are not on their own; they have a team of solicitors, so we could estimate costs will be at least another £2million to mount another challenge and for the Government to defend it. So the fees will become astronomical, upwards of £7.5million in total.’
Begum has been living in a Kurdish-run refugee camp in northeast Syria since the fall of the caliphate. Yesterday’s ruling was welcomed by the Home Office and Downing Street, which said decisions about the deprivation of citizenship were never taken lightly.
A Home Office spokesman said: ‘Our priority remains maintaining the safety and security of the UK and we will robustly defend any decision made in doing so.’
But former Brexit secretary David Davis accused the Government of shirking its obligations to Begum, who was 15 when she left Britain. ‘ Shamima Begum is British, and should be repatriated along with all our other nationals detained without charge or trial in north-east Syria, to face British justice, where appropriate,’ he said.
He added: ‘ Our international allies recognised this as the only sensible solution long ago – the Government must finally take responsibility and abandon its failed policy.’
US officials have previously warned that the British stance harms international efforts to combat terrorism.
‘KCs can charge £10,000 a day’
SOME might feel the decision to strip Isis bride Shamima Begum of her British passport and ban her from returning to this country was harsh.
She was just 15 when she went from London to Syria, was married off to a jihadi fighter and bore three children, all of whom died in the chaos and aftermath of the terror group’s final defeat.
The Appeal Court acknowledged these factors yesterday but still ruled that the then Home Secretary Sajid Javid’s 2019 decision to revoke her citizenship on national security grounds was lawful.
It was a rare legal victory for the Government and welcome recognition by the judiciary that public interest sometimes trumps individual human rights.
Begum may be contrite now, but by joining Isis she repudiated British values and all we stand for. To allow her back would send a message to others who join our enemies abroad that they will always have a home here.
Human rights group Amnesty described Begum’s banishment as ‘medieval’. This is risible. What was truly medieval was the regime of beheading, slavery, and mass rape in which she chose to participate.
But there is another aspect of this case that exposes the byzantine nature and colossal expense of our immigration courts system. Since declaring her desire to return to Britain in 2019 – primarily so she could have a baby on the NHS – Begum’s case has cost the taxpayer millions.
It has been through several hearings before the Special Immigration Appeals Commission, and all the way up to the Supreme Court, which ruled against her in February 2021.
Undeterred, her lawyers tried a new tack, saying she should be allowed back as she had been trafficked to Syria. Having lost yesterday, they will doubtless be considering another Supreme Court appeal.
It’s an absurd legal merry-go-round which makes lawyers rich but corrodes public faith in justice.
This is a high-profile case, but it is played out in microcosm every day in the asylum system, where endless appeals have made it almost impossible to deport those whose claims are refused.
Indeed, if Begum, now 24, could get herself from Syria to Calais and pay traffickers to ship her across to Kent on a small boat, she would probably be back for good. So much for taking back control.