ISIS bride Shamima Begum will try to exploit ‘any error’ to overturn decision to strip her of her British citizenship, Court of Appeal hears

• Shamima Begum was stripped of her British citizenship in 2019
• Court heard she will try exploit ‘any error’ to overturn the decision

Shamima Begum will exploit ‘any error’ to overturn the decision to revoke her citizenship as she knows the government will not take it away again, the Court of Appeal heard.

Begum, 24, was stripped of her British citizenship by then Home Secretary Sajid Javid in 2019 after travelling from Bethnal Green to Syria to join ISIS at age 15 in 2015.

She lost a challenge against the ruling earlier this year and is now appealing the decision at the High Court.

Sir James Eadie, KC, for the Home Office, told the hearing on Wednesday Begum wanted to exploit ‘any error’ to overturn the original decision.

He said Begum knows if a new decision has to be made she will not have her citizenship revoked because this would make her stateless.

Sir James Eadie, KC, for the Home Office, told the hearing on Wednesday Begum wanted to exploit ‘any error’ to overturn the original decision 

In 2019 the government argued Begum automatically had Bangladeshi citizenship due to her parents being nationals of the country but this no longer applies since she reached the age of 21.

‘The position as we understand it now is that Ms Begum, now past the age of 21, is no longer a dual citizen,’ Sir James said. 

‘So when it comes to the original decision, for the opposition, any error will do because they know in any future decision statelessness will rear its head which will perhaps be a game changer.’

Begum’s lawyers argue she was groomed online and the UK government, Tower Hamlets council, her school and the police failed to protect her from exploitation.

But Sir James told the court the most important factor in the decision had been to protect the public.

‘National security and the question of whether she represented a danger to the national security of the United Kingdom at that time was of course the most important consideration,’ he continued. 

‘The power to deprive is an important power conferred on the Secretary of State by parliament and in recent years a key part of protecting the public from the risk of terrorism.

‘It prevents persons deprived, as long as they have dual citizenship, from exercising their rights to abide in and enter into the United Kingdom and imposes the need to seek before their entry leave to enter.

‘This is a key power in the Secretary of State’s armoury exercised in the most powerful and compelling public interest namely to protect national security which is shorthand for the protection of the public.

Ms Begum’s British citizenship was revoked on national security grounds by the former home secretary Sajid Javid shortly after she was found, nine months pregnant, in a Syrian refugee camp in February 2019

‘The decision in this case was taken on precisely those grounds.’

He said Begum’s lawyers were not challenging the Home Secretary’s assessment that she posed a risk to national security.

The national security assessment produced for the Home Secretary stated Begum planned her travel and made a conscious effort to conceal it from the authorities.

‘She travelled for the purpose of aligning with ISIL (Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant) and when there did in fact align with ISIL,’ he said. 

‘The assessment was that she did that with her eyes open, based in particular on the fact ISIL and their wide ranging brutality had been widely covered in the media.

Sir James said the assessment took into account interviews she gave after capture with The Times and Sky News.

‘There wasn’t a rejection or even a movement away from the ideology- as the first Times interview so graphically illustrated,’ he said.

Sir James argued it was possible for someone to have been exploited but still pose a threat to national security.

‘It is entirely possible for someone to have been exploited or trafficked by nasty people or similar and yet still be a danger to the public.’

He said the fact she may have been trafficked or exploited did not mean she had not participated in various activities of ISIL subsequently.

‘Ms Begum’s case is essentially that anyone manipulated by ISIL propaganda or recruitment and has their travel facilitated there should be a credible suspicion they are a victim of trafficking.

‘The fact of trafficking at the point of leaving the United Kingdom is not inconsistent in any way with posing a possibly very serious national security risk and indeed factors of manipulation or radicalisation are factors that tend towards such a risk rather than against it.’

The appeal, heard by the Lady Chief Justice Dame Sue Carr, Lord Justice Bean and Lady Justice Whipple, continues.

It is set to conclude tomorrow before a decision is given at a later date.

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