Jihadi bride Shamima Begum will not be allowed to return to the UK to challenge being stripped of her citizenship until the Supreme Court has made a ruling on a decision to let back into the country.
Lawyers for the Government were granted leave to appeal to the highest court in the land and challenge an earlier ruling that allowed Begun to appear in person and argue against being stripped of her citizenship.
Three Appeal Court judges agreed there should be a stay on any movement until after the Supreme Court had made their ruling which is expected later this year.
Lady Justice King, sitting remotely with Lord Justice Singh and Lord Justice Flaux, ruled that the appeal against her return should be heard by the Supreme Court.
The three judges had earlier this month ruled that Begun, who fled to Syria when she was 15 years old permission to return from the refugee camp where she is held to appear in person before an immigration appeals board.
Lawyers for the Government had insisted that she posed a risk to national security and should not be allowed back into the UK.
In the remote hearing today Sir James Eadie for the Government said while there was some sympathy for Begun due to her age she had chosen to ‘align herself with terrorists’.
‘She did leave with intent and did align herself with violent extremists in Syria with Isis,’ he said.
‘There is a big issue at stake here. What principals should govern a case where a person can get a fair hearing because they have placed themselves, not as a result of any Secretary of State action but where that is the result of going abroad and aligning with terrorists groups.
‘It is the assessment of the Government that they pose a risk to national security n the UK were they to return.
‘There may be some sympathy of her age, but she did leave with intent and did align with violent extremists in Syria with ISIS.’
Begum was one of three east London schoolgirls who travelled to Syria to join the Islamic State group in February 2015.
She was 15 years old and about to sit her GCSE exams when having claimed to have been ‘groomed’ by watching videos of people being executed she decided to flee to Syria and join terror organistion.
She lived under IS rule for more than three years before she was found, nine months pregnant, in a Syrian refugee camp in February last year.
The then-home secretary Sajid Javid, revoked her British citizenship on national security grounds after she was discovered nine months pregnant in a refugee camp.
A Special Immigration Appeals Commission upheld the Home Office’s decision and ruled that she should not be allowed to return and said she could claim Bangladeshi citizenship through her father.
Begum, now 20, took legal action against the Home Office, claiming the decision was unlawful because it rendered her stateless and exposed her to a real risk of death or inhuman and degrading treatment. Her lawyers claimed she faced execution if returned to Bangladesh or Iraq.
Lord Justice Flaux, Lady Justice King and Lord Justice Singh ruled that Begum should be allowed to return to the UK to pursue her appeal – sparking outrage and concern that other Jihadis who left Britain would also be able to return.
The Government said it was “bitterly disappointed” by the ruling, while Mr Javid said he was “deeply concerned” by the judgment.
Human rights groups have backed Begun’s return to appear before the Special Immigration Appeals Commisiom/
Katie Lines from Liberty said: “The right to a fair trial is not something the government can take away on a whim.”
Earlier in the hearing the three appeal court judges said the Attorney General would be asked to look at a ‘ potentially very serious contempt’ after their earlier ruling on Begun was leaked to a newspaper.
Appeal: Begum challenged the decision made by then Home Secretary Sajid Javid saying she now feared for her life. Her third child Jarrah, pictured in her arms, died at three weeks old
Sir James Eadie QC, for the Home Office, earlier said there was ‘a big issue at stake’, namely ‘what principles and approach should govern a case in which someone at present cannot have a fair and effective hearing in a deprivation appeal, but they cannot do so because they have placed themselves, not as a result of any of the Secretary of State’s actions, (but) where that is the result of going abroad and aligning with terrorist groups’.
Sir James said it was ‘an issue of real pressing public importance’ which was ‘perhaps the central democratic issue of our times’.
He added: ‘This cannot be assumed to be unique or even, given the number of people who have aligned in this way, to be a highly unusual case.’
Sir James said Ms Begum was ‘in precisely the category that causes real concern’.
He submitted that, while there may be ‘some potential for sympathy in light of the age she was when she left the jurisdiction … she did leave the jurisdiction with the intention of, and then did align with violent extremists in Syria’.
The court also heard that the apparent leaking of the Court of Appeal’s draft judgment ‘or the essential contents of that judgment’ to The Sun ahead of its formal publication would be referred to the Attorney General.
At the outset of Friday’s hearing, Lady Justice King said: ‘There was a breach of the embargo which preserved the confidentiality of the judgment until hand down, the judgment having been circulated to the parties on July 9.
‘Either a copy of that judgment, or the essential contents of that judgment, were disclosed or passed on to The Sun national newspaper in advance of the judgment being handed down on July 16.’
The judge added that ‘the article was removed during the course of the night’ before the Court of Appeal gave its ruling.
Lady Justice King also said that the article ‘rightly or wrongly referred to ‘senior Government sources’ as having been the source of the information’.
She said: ‘We intend to report that matter to the Attorney General.’
In February this year, the Special Immigration Appeals Commission (SIAC) – a specialist tribunal which hears challenges to decisions to remove someone’s British citizenship on national security grounds – found Ms Begum ‘cannot play any meaningful part in her appeal and that, to that extent, the appeal will not be fair and effective’.
Jihadi bride Shamima Begum has been pictured today wearing jeans, a shirt and a blue hat as she walked through a Syrian refugee camp earlier this month
But SIAC ruled that ‘it does not follow that her appeal succeeds’ and Ms Begum’s challenge to the Home Office’s decision to refuse to allow her to enter the UK to effectively pursue her appeal was also rejected.
However, earlier this month, the Court of Appeal ruled that ‘the only way in which she can have a fair and effective appeal is to be permitted to come into the United Kingdom to pursue her appeal’.
Lord Justice Flaux – sitting with Lady Justice King and Lord Justice Singh – said: ‘Fairness and justice must, on the facts of this case, outweigh the national security concerns, so that the leave to enter appeals should be allowed.’
The judge found that ‘the national security concerns about her could be addressed and managed if she returns to the United Kingdom’.
Lord Justice Flaux also said: ‘With due respect to SIAC, it is unthinkable that, having concluded that Ms Begum could not take any meaningful part in her appeal so that it could not be fair and effective, she should have to continue with her appeal nonetheless.’
He added: ‘It is difficult to conceive of any case where a court or tribunal has said we cannot hold a fair trial, but we are going to go on anyway.’
Earlier this month MPs and victims of Islamic State atrocities reacted furiously to the decision.
Jihadi bride Shamima Begum, 20, is desperate to return to Britain five years after she voluntarily left to join ISIS in Syria – her British citizenship was revoked when she was found in a refugee camp after the caliphate fell last year
Tory MP Andrew Bridgen said it risked a flood of jihadis returning. He told MailOnline: ‘It opens the door for all her fellow jihadi brides to return to Britain – and potentially their terrorist partners too.
‘Most Brits will rightly think that when you swear allegiance to another country that declares war on Britain, that you have given up all the rights and protections and privileges of your British citizenship. After today’s ruling it appears you have not’.
Ms Begum was one of three schoolgirls from Bethnal Green Academy who left their homes and families to join IS, shortly after Sharmeena Begum – who is no relation – travelled to Syria in December 2014.
Kadiza Sultana and Amira Abase, then 16 and 15 respectively, and Ms Begum boarded a flight from Gatwick Airport to Istanbul, Turkey, on February 17 2015, before making their way to Raqqa in Syria.
Mother-of-three Begum, 20, whose children with Dutch jihadi husband Yago Riedijk all died, is still in the Al Hol camp in northern Syria but could be heading back to Britain within weeks after today’s landmark ruling.
Her first two children, a one-year-old girl and a three-month-old boy, died in the caliphate after becoming sick and malnourished, while her third child Jarrah died shortly after he was born in the camp where his mother still lives.
She told The Times last February that she left Raqqa in January 2017 with her husband but her children, a one-year-old girl and a three-month-old boy, had both since died.
ISIS’ jihadi bride ‘matchmaker’, a bouncy castle salesman turned ‘executioner’ and ‘Jihadi Jack’: The British extremists vying to return to the UK
ISIS’ British ‘matchmaker’
British mother-of-one Tooba Gondal, 25, moved to London as a child and had previously claimed that she had permanent British residence but the Home Office issued her with an exclusion order last November, which bars her from ever returning to the UK.
The mother-of-two studied at Goldsmith’s University in London and is accused of acting as a ‘matchmaker’, allegedly arranging marriages for members including ISIS bride Shamima Begum.
Gondal was born in France but moved to London as a child and previously held British residency.
She lived in Britain before joining ISIS in 2015 and is believed to have recruited several teenage women. She is banned from re-entering Britain.
The 25-year-old is accused of being one of the top recruiters of females to the ranks of ISIS.
Known as a ‘matchmaker’, she allegedly arranged the marriage of Shamima Begum who fled her Bethnal Green home for Syria in 2015.
In October, Gondal wrote an open letter to the Sunday Times from the Ain Issa camp in Raqaa, northern Syria.
‘I desperately wish for the British government to take us back. I want to prove that I am a changed person; a much better individual for society. I offer to help prevent vulnerable Muslims from being targeted and radicalised,’ she said.
Turkey’s incursion into northern Syria caused chaos and she was able to escape into Turkey, where she was later arrested.
Gondal’s son Ibrahim is entitled to British citizenship because his father – who was killed in a suicide bombing in Iraq – was from the UK.
‘Sid Vicious’
Hindu-born Londoner Siddhartha Dhar, 32, was known as ‘Sid’ to friends and enjoyed drinking, would take girls to his favourite action movies and dreamed of being an NHS dentist.
MI6 and foreign secret services are now trying to work out if he is the new Jihadi John – and has already earned the nicknames ‘Sid Vicious’ and ‘Jihadi Sid’.
Dhar’s family say he was a ‘sensitive boy’ who ‘changed’ as a teenager after the death of his father and converted to Islam, shunning TV and music, sleeping on the floor and even telling his mother he couldn’t love her anymore because she is not a Muslim.
He stopped studying and rented bouncy castles for children’s parties while supporting banned militant group Al-Muhajiroun and running ‘roadshows’ aimed at attracting troubled youngsters in inner-cities.
Dhar then wrote ISIS’ 46-page guide to life in the caliphate promising a holiday lifestyle with home comforts.
He said the Islamic State was like a ‘plush Mediterranean resort’ with British chocolate like Kit Kats, Bounty bars and Snickers freely available ‘and the best lattes and cappuccinos around.’
After Jihadi John was eviscerated in a drone attack it was rumoured that Dhar took over as executioner in chief. He has at least one son.
Jihadi Jack
Once Jack Letts had travelled to Syria, he became almost unrecognisable from the soccer-mad boy who used to sleep with his football.
The elder of Sally Lane and John Letts’s two sons, Jack struggled with obsessive compulsive disorder and Tourette’s at school, jurors were told.
His British-Canadian father described him as a ‘personable’ young man who was ‘engaging and humorous’.
His friend, Anwar Belhimer, told his father he had been saying ‘worrying things’ and urged him to confiscate his passport.
But at the age of 18, his parents supported his decision to study Arabic abroad and he set off for Jordan and Kuwait.
From there, he married an Iraqi woman named Asmaa and they had a son Muhammed.
Despite warning signs, Lane was horrified when he told her he was in Syria in September 2014.
He was probably helped to travel to Islamic State territory by a group of fighters from Portsmouth.
He has spent the last two years in a prison in Kurdish-held Rojava, in northern Syria.
The British Government has said it has no consular assistance in the region.
Meanwhile, in a phone voicemail to a BBC journalist, Jack appeared not to support their unstinting efforts.
Despite his parents’ high profile campaign for his return, he told a BBC reporter: ‘To be honest the whole idea of putting pressure on the British Government to come and save me is not something I wanted to do or something I thought was clever.’
The caliphate’s gravedigger
Father-of-five Shahan Choudhury, 32, from London, was one of ISIS’ gravedigger who buried fighters during the caliphate’s last stand.
He was a former suspect in a gang murder before he fled to Syria in 2014 – after being radicalised in what is allegedly one of Britain’s most secure prisons.
Shahan Choudhury, 30, vanished from his flat in London last year and has since used Twitter to urge other British Muslims to carry out terror attacks in the UK.
His family say he was ‘brainwashed’ after spending 18 months on remand in HMP Belmarsh for allegedly taking part in the stabbing of a 17-year-old.
He was acquitted in 2007 but his family believe he was ‘brainwashed’ by Islamic extremists at HMP Belmarsh.
As soon as he was released he joined the banned al-Muhajiroun (ALM), the hate group led by Anjem Choudary which has called for the implementation of Sharia Law in the U.K.
A relative said: ‘He was just like any other western kid when he went in but by the time he came out he was going on about religion and how the kuffar [non-believers] would all end up in hellfire.’
‘Hungry Hamza’
26-year-old west Londoner Hamza Parvez – the first known British man to have joined the group in Iraq who was captured by Kurdish-led forces outside the group’s final stronghold in Banghouz, in April last year.
He was dubbed ‘Hungry Hamza’ because he repeatedly tweeted about loving life with ISIS – but then moaned about how much he missed KFC, Nando’s and McDonald’s dinners.
He was used by ISIS to tweet about the food available in the caliphate including ice cream and hailed life there as the ‘golden age of jihad’.
But as it collapsed a lack of fast food meant he lost 30 kilos and was last seen languishing in a jail on the Syrian border with Turkey.
The 26-year-old left his home in west London to join the terror group, but after he surrendered to Kurdish forces he claimed he did not realise ISIS were so bad when he went to join up.
Cardiff’s ice cream jihadi
A British ice cream seller who went to join ISIS in Syria five years ago has pleaded to come home because he misses his mother and his life in Cardiff.
Aseel Muthana left Wales for Syria in February 2014, aged 17, following his brother Nasser and another friend in joining the jihadist group.
His family feared he had died but Muthana has now resurfaced at a prison camp in northern Syria and his mother has backed his plea to come home.
Speaking to ITV News from the prison, Muthana, now 22, claimed he had merely wanted to ‘help the poor’ when he travelled to Syria.
The wave of widely publicised ISIS beheadings began later in 2014, when journalist James Foley and British aid worker David Haines were among numerous people murdered in propaganda videos broadcast by the terror group.
However, ISIS had its roots in extremist groups which had been using beheadings during the war in Iraq well before that.
Begging to come home, Muthana said he missed his mother Umm Amin and his former life in the Welsh capital where he worked selling ice cream.
The fate of his brother Nasser remains unclear while his friend Reeyad Khan was killed by a drone strike in 2015.