Minister under fire over ISIS baby death
HOME SECRETARY ACCUSED OVER PM AMBITION
SAJID Javid has come under fire after ISIS bride Shamima Begum’s newborn baby died.
The Home Secretary was accused of putting his aspirations of becoming prime minister ahead of the infant’s needs.
Ms Begum, 19, gave birth in a refugee camp in the middle of February, having already lost two children.
Her third child’s death was confirmed on Friday by her family’s lawyer Tasnime Akunjee.
He had earlier tweeted: “He was a British citizen.”
Ms Begum, from Bethnal Green in east London, was 15 when she and two other schoolgirls went to join the terror group. She resurfaced heavily pregnant in a refugee camp in northern Syria last month and spoke of her desire to return to the UK, as the selfstyled caliphate collapsed.
On February 17, her family announced the boy’s birth and said they believed he was “in good health”.
In an earlier interview with the BBC, Ms Begum said: “Losing my children the way I lost them, I don’t want to lose this baby as well and this is really not a place to raise children, this camp.”
Mr Javid stripped Ms Begum of her British citizenship amid a fierce national debate over whether she should be allowed to return.
Her family, who pledged to appeal against the decision, also wrote to Mr Javid pleading with him to allow a safe passage for the boy to come to the UK. Last month, Mr Javid confirmed the boy was a British citizen and said he had considered the child’s interest when deciding to revoke Ms Begum’s citizenship. Following news of the boy’s death, shadow home secretary Diane Abbott criticised Mr Javid’s decision. She tweeted: “It is against international law to make someone stateless, and now an innocent child has died as a result of a British woman being stripped of her citizenship. This is callous and inhumane.” Dal Babu, a former Metropolitan Police chief superintendent and friend of the Begum family, described it as an “entirely avoidable death of a British citizen”.
He told BBC’S Newsnight: “What we have here is a totally innocent child – whatever you may think of Shamima’s shortcomings, the mistakes she made as a 15-year-old child when she was groomed on our watch.
“We failed to safeguard her and now we have failed, as a country, to safeguard a child – a totally innocent British subject.”
He added that he believed the decision regarding Ms Begum’s citizenship should be “urgently” reviewed.
Mr Javid, when asked whether there was any plan for Ms Begum’s son, had previously told the Commons Home Affairs Committee it would be “incredibly difficult” for the Government to facilitate the return of a child from Syria. “If it is possible somehow for a British child to be brought to a place where there is a British consular presence, the closest place – it might be Turkey for example – in those circumstances I guess potentially it is possible to arrange for some sort of help with the consent of the parent,” he added.
Conservative Party chairman Brandon Lewis defended Mr Javid’s decision to strip Ms Begum of her British citizenship speaking to BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.
Mr Lewis said: “The Home Secretary will have had advice and I know he made a decision based on what is in the national interest and the security of people here in the UK.
“There is no question that the duty of a home secretary in this country is to keep British people safe.”