Begum camp could become ‘Britain’s Guantanamo’

THE camp holding Shamima Begum could become “Britain’s Guantanamo” if she and other women who joined Islamic State are not returned to the UK, the Government’s independent reviewer of terrorism laws has warned.

In a speech, Jonathan Hall KC said Britain’s failure to bring back IS women and their children from camps in north-east Syria could become a source of “exploitable grievance” among organisations that wished the UK harm.

It would echo the international backlash against the US’S Guantanamo Bay detention camp, set up in 2002 by George W Bush during the “war on terror” following the September 11 attacks. Some 780 suspects and terrorists have been held there.

Mr Hall also warned that any delay in returning their children could leave them exposed to radicalisation by Islamic extremists as “cubs of the caliphate.”

He said: “If the UK stood alone, then ‘Europe’s Guantanamo’ would soon become ‘Britain’s Guantanamo’.

“This is a factor that cannot, I think, be discounted, when talking about longer term risk to the UK.”