Her human rights lawyer... who also works for Assange
SHAMIMA Begum is being represented by one of the UK’s top human rights lawyers whose past clients include hate preacher Abu Qatada.
Gareth Peirce, once described as the lawyer of choice ‘for every accused jihadist and IRA suspect’, took on the case last week.
The 79-year-old, who was educated at Cheltenham Ladies College and Oxford University, is now also currently representing WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange in his battle against extradition to the US after his arrest last week.
The solicitor made her name representing the Birmingham Six and Guildford Four – two groups of Irishmen falsely convicted of IRA bombings in UK pubs in 1974. She also represented Judith Ward, who was wrongfully convicted of the M62 coach bombing.
Other clients included Moazzam Begg, who was held at Guantanamo Bay for nearly three years, and the family of Jean Charles de Menezes. The Brazilian electrician was mistaken for an Islamist terrorist and shot dead by police at Stockwell Tube station in the aftermath of the 7/7 London bombings in 2005.
In Qatada’s case, she was said to have pulled off a breathtaking coup by filing an eleventh-hour appeal to Europe on behalf of her widely demonised client in 2012. The move wrong-footed Theresa May, then Home Secretary, and delayed the fanatic’s deportation to Jordan. He was eventually kicked out of Britain the following year.
Mrs Peirce, who has turned down a CBE for services to justice, is also representing the family of another Islamic State terrorist whose British citizenship has been revoked.
Officials believe El Shafee Elsheikh was part of a notorious ‘execution cell’ – dubbed The Beatles by their hostages because of their British accents – responsible for the beheading of at least 27 Western hostages.
Elsheikh, 30, was captured last year and is being held by Western-backed Kurdish forces in Syria. He could face trial in the US this summer.
Sir Ludovic Kennedy, a campaigner against miscarriages of justice, dedicated a book her, calling her ‘the doyenne of British defence lawyers’.