Begum Cannot Return To UK As Citizenship Appeal Fails

Shamima Begum's lawyers vow to challenge the decision

- Lizzie Dearden

The decision to remove Shamima Begum’s British citizenship was lawful, a court has ruled despite finding that she may have been trafficked for sexual exploitation by ISIS.

In the latest stage of the former Isis bride’s legal battle against the government, the Special Immigration Appeals Commission (SIAC) had considered arguments that she was made “de facto stateless”.

A summary of the judgment said there was “credible suspicion” that Begum had been trafficked to Syria for sexual exploitation as a child, and “arguable breaches of duty” by state bodies who failed to protect her from radicalisation and stop her from leaving the UK.

But the court found that those factors were not a bar to citizenship deprivation, and that issues around whether Begum travelled to Syria voluntarily and poses a threat “are for the secretary of state to evaluate and not for the commission”.

Mr Justice Jay said the SIAC had found the case to be “of great concern and difficulty”, and that its judgments had been “finely balanced”.

“We have sought to examine this issue as carefully and closely as we have been able to,” he added.

“Ultimately, the commission has not been able to conclude … that the secretary of state’s judgement that the risk to national security outweighs her personal interests is wrong in public law terms.”

The judgment, which could be appealed by Begum, means that she has no prospect of being returned to the UK from a detention camp where she is being held with women and children captured during the fall of Isis territories.