Shamima Begum loses challenge over removal of British citizenship

Shamima Begum (PA)

Shamima Begum has lost a legal challenge over the decision to deprive her of her British citizenship.

Ms Begum was 15 when she travelled from Bethnal Green, east London, through Turkey and into territory controlled by the so-called Islamic State (IS).

Her British citizenship was revoked shortly after she was found, nine months pregnant, in a Syrian refugee camp in February 2019.

Ms Begum, now 23, brought a challenge against the Home Office over this decision at the Special Immigration Appeals Commission (SIAC), a specialist tribunal which hears challenges to decisions to remove someone’s British citizenship on national security grounds.

Sajid Javid took the decision to remove her British citizenship when home secretary (PA)

Following a five-day hearing in November, the tribunal dismissed her challenge on Wednesday.

At the hearing last year, Ms Begum’s barristers Samantha Knights KC and Dan Squires KC said she was “recruited, transported, transferred, harboured and received in Syria for the purposes of ‘sexual exploitation’ and ‘marriage’ to an adult male”.

They also argued that the Home Office unlawfully failed to consider that she travelled to Syria and remained there “as a victim of child trafficking”.

However, James Eadie KC, for the department, said the security services “continue to assess that Ms Begum poses a risk to national security”.

Mr Eadie later said then-home secretary Sajid Javid took into account Ms Begum’s age, how she travelled to Syria – including likely online radicalisation – and her activity in the country, when deciding to remove her British citizenship.