Shamima a victim of child trafficking, UK court told
HOME OFFICE ‘OVER HASTY’ IN REMOVING BEGUM’S CITIZENSHIP
LAWYERS for Shamima Begum, who was stripped of her UK citizenship after travelling to join Daesh (the Islamic State group) in Syria challenged the decision on Monday (21), arguing she was a victim of child trafficking.
Begum is one of hundreds of Europeans whose fate following the 2019 collapse of the Islamist extremists' self-styled caliphate has proved a thorny issue for governments.
Begum, then 15, left her home in east London in 2015 with two school friends to travel to Syria, where she married a Daesh fighter and had three children, none of whom survived. She was later "found" by British journalists, heavily pregnant in a Syrian camp in February 2019 – and her apparent lack of remorse in initial interviews drew outrage.
She was stripped of her British citizenship, leaving her stranded and stateless in Syria's Kurdish-run Roj camp.
Monday's (21) hearing at the Special Immigration Appeals Commission (SIAC) follows a Supreme Court decision last year to refuse her permission to enter the UK to fight her citizenship case against the Home Office.
Begum's lawyer, Samantha Knights, told the court that "at its heart this case concerns a British child aged 15 who was... influenced... with her friends... by a determined and effective Isis (Daesh) propaganda machine".
There was "overwhelming" evidence she had been "recruited, transported, transferred, harboured and received in Syria for the purposes of 'sexual exploitation' and 'marriage' to an adult male".
However, she said that the process by which the Home Office took the decision to remove Begum's citizenship was "extraordinary" and "over hasty" and failed to investigate and determine whether she was "a child victim of trafficking".
Lawyers representing the Home Office said Begum's case was about national security rather than trafficking.
James Eadie, representing the British government, said in written arguments that Begum had aligned with Daesh and stayed in Syria for four years until 2019.
Eadie said Begum left Daesh territory "only as the caliphate collapsed", adding: "Even at that stage, the evidence demonstrates that she left only for safety and not because of a genuine disengagement from the group."
A British intelligence officer known only as Witness E, who gave evidence from behind a screen, said it was “inconceivable” that someone travelling to Syria to join IS in 2015 “would not know what (IS) was doing as a terrorist organisation”.
He said it was not conceivable that a 15-year-old “would not know what ISIL was about”, particularly a teenager who he said was predicted high grades at school,
“In some respects she would have known what she was doing and had agency in doing so,” Witness E said.
A book published earlier this year by journalist Richard Kerbaj alleged that Begum, now 23, and her friends were taken into Syria by a Syrian man who was leaking information to the Canadian security services.
Mohammed Al-Rashed is alleged to have been in charge of the Turkish side of an extensive Daesh people smuggling network.
"It is now fairly well settled that she and her friends were transported across borders... by a Canadian asset of the Canadian security forces," Begum's lawyer Tasnime Akunjee said before the hearing.
"The very definition of trafficking is pretty well established by that," he added.
Despite her initial comments, Begum has since expressed remorse for her actions and sympathy for Daesh victims.
In a documentary last year, she said that on arrival in Syria she quickly realised Daesh were "trapping people" to boost the caliphate's numbers and "look good for the (propaganda) videos".
Some 900 people are estimated to have travelled from Britain to Syria and Iraq to join Daesh. Of those, around 150 are believed to have been stripped of their citizenship.
Human rights group Reprieve said there were currently 20-25 British families, including 36 children, still in camps in Kurdishcontrolled northeast Syria, where suspected relatives of Daesh fighters have been held.
Other European nations have also been grappling with how to handle the return of their own nationals.
Some countries, such as Germany and Belgium, have tried to carry out regular repatriation operations.
Last month, Berlin said it had settled "almost all known cases" of German families in jihadist prison camps in Syria, claiming to have repatriated 76 minors as well as 26 women. According to Belgium's federal prosecutor's office, in mid-2022 there remained "a few women and a few children" in the Syrian camps.
Faced with hostile public opinion, however, France had carried out repatriations on a case-by-case basis. But it picked up the pace in recent months after criticism from the European Court of Human Rights. Since July, Paris has repatriated 31 women and 75 children in two operations.