Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
We can’t be sure she won’t be terror threat
IS bride Begum’s lawyer makes shock admission
SHAMIMA Begum’s lawyer has admitted she may still be a terror risk to Britain.
In an astonishing statement Tasnime Akunjee called for her return despite saying “nobody can be sure... if she is still a danger to the UK”.
His admission came after British judges green-lighted Shamima’s appeal to re-enter the UK to try to win back her British citizenship.
On ITV’S Good Morning Britain Mr Akunjee was asked if she could be a terror threat or groom others following her extremist past. He said: “No one can be sure including her family that won’t happen – but that is pure speculation.”
Akunjee claimed that Begum, 20, cannot properly try to overthrow the stripping of her citizenship because of a “lack of technology” in her Syrian camp. If she does make it back to the UK, Ms Begum faces being arrested and charged with terror-related offences, but is unlikely to be removed again in the future.
Colonel Richard Kemp, a former terrorism adviser to the UK Government, said: “This is a very skewed judgement, that the human rights of terrorists are viewed as being more important than those of their victims.”
Yesterday the Mirror told how the decision could open the floodgates for dozens of pariah ISIS fighters to come back to live in the UK.
It could also cost millions of pounds in constant monitoring by the Security Service. A Whitehall source said: “It is certainly true that every person it takes to watch a returnee from Syria is diverted from other operations.” Ms Begum, fled the UK to join IS when she was only 15, and was stripped of her British citizenship in February 2019.