Shamima ‘went to Syria with her eyes open’ to the horrors
SHAMIMA Begum went to Syria with ‘her eyes open’ to the horrors of the Islamic State regime she wanted to join, a court heard yesterday.
Lawyers for the Home Office said the 15-year-old must have known of the beheadings and atrocities carried out by the terror group before she decided to leave Britain in 2015.
Once inside the ‘caliphate’ she would probably have been exposed to its ideology and routine acts of extreme violence, the Home Secretary’s legal team said.
Her time with IS meant she could be a threat to national security if she was allowed to return to Britain, the Special Immigration Appeals Commission heard.
Lawyers for Begum, now 23, argue she was a victim of online grooming by the IS ‘propaganda machine’ in Britain and then trafficked to Syria while still a child. They claim it was unlawful to strip her of her British citizenship after she was discovered in a Syrian refugee camp in 2019.
But James Eadie, for the Home Secretary, said Begum could be dangerous even if she was the victim of trafficking and exploitation. He told the hearing in central London: ‘You can still be a risk of setting off a bomb in London or in Manchester ... even if you have been trafficked at a young age.’
Security services have identified several potential risks from people who have returned from IS-controlled territory, including involvement in the planning or execution of terror attacks, the KC said.
Begum travelled to Syria voluntarily and remained there for four years before her citizenship was revoked in 2019.
Sir James said even victims of ‘ghastly, unacceptable’ trafficking could still be a danger, adding: ‘If you have been exposed for prolonged periods there is an almighty problem.
‘If they do pose such a danger, how they came to pose that danger is not important. What
‘Could still pose a threat’
matters is that they do in fact pose such a danger.’ Begum remains detained in a camp in north-east Syria. Her mother Asma said her family still hoped she could return home.
In a witness statement read to the court yesterday, Mrs Begum said: ‘I have never for a moment stopped loving my daughter and wanting her home with me. The hope and anticipation of building a future with her and for her is, on my worst days, the only reason I am able to get out of bed and keep going.
‘I love my daughter and she is and will always be an important part of my family. I will stand with her and do everything I can for her future.’