Shamima Begum, the former ISIS bride who left her home in Bethnal Green, East London, at the age of 15 to join the terror group in Syria, will learn today whether she will be allowed to return to the UK.
She was found in a Syrian refugee camp in 2019 and stripped of her British citizenship on national security grounds.
She has since been fighting the government in court over the decision, with supporters claiming she is a victim of trafficking.
However, the government argues that she went to Syria with her “eyes wide open” and is a danger to society.
“Of course she clearly represents a threat. But there is a lot of information in that case that is not in the public domain,” said veterans’ affairs minister Johnny Mercer, speaking ahead of the appeal judgement.
“Those decisions are made in the courts and in the Home Office, and I’m sure they’ll come to the right conclusion.”
During a hearing in November, Begum’s lawyers claimed that the Home Office had a duty to investigate whether she was a victim of trafficking before stripping her of her British citizenship.
However, barristers for the Home Office defended the government’s decision, arguing that people trafficked to Syria and brainwashed can still pose a threat to national security, and that Begum expressed no remorse when she first emerged from Syria.
