Shamima Begum has lost her bid to regain her British citizenship after Court of Appeal judges ruled that the government had the right to block her return to the UK to protect national security.
Last year, the Special Immigration Appeals Commission (SIAC) rejected his bid to regain his British citizenship, and today Court of Appeal judges backed that decision. Delivering the verdict, Chief Justice Lady Carr said: “Miss Begum’s condition was serious; It could also be argued that Ms. Begum is the author of her own misfortune.
“But it is not the court’s business to agree or disagree with either point of view.
“The court’s only duty was to evaluate whether the deprivation decision was unlawful or not. Since it was not so, Ms. Begüm’s objection was rejected.”
Begum fled Bethnal Green to Syria when she was 15 and is now 24. He was stranded in a refugee camp in northern Syria.
The decision in Begum’s Court of Appeal case will be given at a short hearing today (Friday, February 23) at 10am.
At a hearing in November last year, Shamima’s lawyer, Samantha Knights KC, told the Special Immigration Appeals Commission hearing in London that she was the victim of a “determined Islamic State propaganda machine” that lured her to Syria in 2015. A 15 year old boy. This was also the age when she left England with two other friends, Kadiza Sultana (16) and Amira Abase (15).
Begum said: “Sharmeena, you know, was talking to us face to face about coming to ISIS.
“I was being manipulated into thinking this was the right thing to do, and I was being manipulated with lies about where to go and what to do.
“So in my view Sharmeena is probably still a radical though. I will say she is also a victim of ISIS.”
The trio joined the Islamic State group the same year.
Begum has been prominent in the news in recent years for her attempts to regain British citizenship and return to the country. It has since been claimed that he was smuggled into Syria by a Canadian spy.
But less is known about the two girls who broke up with Begum in their teens. All three were married to members of the Islamic State, but their stories have differed since then.
Here’s a look at what happened to Ms. Abase and Ms. Sultana after they left England.
What happened to Amira Abase?
Amira Abase married 18-year-old Australian Islamic State fighter Abdullah Elmir. He was nicknamed the “Red Jihadist” because of his red hair.
Elmir was confirmed to have died in a drone strike in December 2015, shortly after Abase left the UK.
After leaving England, Abase continued to communicate with her mother through social media, but these messages suddenly stopped.
Although Begum said she believed her friend was still alive, Abase’s mother told the press she believed her daughter was dead.
What happened to Kadiza Sultana?
Kadiza Sultana, the eldest of the three young people, also remained in contact with her family for a while after leaving England. This was documented in telephone conversations filmed by ITV News.
Sultana, who married an American Islamic State fighter, claimed to be a housewife. However, intelligence sources claimed that he was involved in planting explosives in suicide vests.
Sultana’s sister told ITV News she sounded “very scared”.
“He got very emotional there too. It’s like… I feel really helpless,” Halima Sultana said. “What can I do? It’s so hard. I don’t think he ever made a choice on his own. This was the first one and it was huge. I’m looking forward to the next call and that keeps me going.”
Sultana is believed to have died in a Russian airstrike a few weeks after those phone calls in May 2016. However, this has never been independently verified.
The family’s lawyer, Tasnime Akunjee, told BBC Newsnight that the family had received news of his death.
“We were kind of expecting this,” Halima told ITV News. “At least we know he’s in a better place. We don’t want his name in the headlines again… He’s gone and we want to respect his wishes.”
Meanwhile, Mr Akunjee said: “The problem with this was that the risk factors associated with leaving were quite lethal; if ISIS can identify and capture you, then their punishment for trying to leave will be quite brutal.”
“The week he was thinking about these issues, a young Austrian girl was caught trying to leave ISIS territory and, according to all reports, publicly beaten to death. Kadiza took this as a bad omen and decided not to risk it. “I think he realized very quickly that propaganda did not match reality.”
Years later, Begum also spoke openly about her friend’s presumed death: “I was in denial at first. “I thought if we died, we would die together.”
What happened to Sharmeena Begum?
Begum was the first of the Bethnal Green girls to flee to Syria. She was recently tracked down by a BBC reporter who discovered that she had escaped from Camp Hol prison in Syria, where ISIS women were held.
Begum is still in Syria, hiding under a different identity. According to the BBC, he has been collecting donations for ISIS and posting on social media about the conditions of the detention camps.
He claimed that the money he raised was “merely to feed and clothe poor women and children.”
However, the BBC reported that ISIS was regrouping and using the money smuggled into the camps to buy weapons and plan attacks.