Terrorist, ISIS girlfriend or victim of sex trafficking? The dramatic story of Shamima Begum, a British teenager who, along with two school friends, was recruited at the age of 15, transported by a Canadian double agent to Syria and married to an old fighter from the Islamic organization, exhibits the dilemma, then that Great Britain stripped him of his nationality.
One of the other two companions died in the fighting against ISIS. The other is missing.
A trial in Great Britain began this week to get him restored to British nationality, after the journalist from the newspaper The Times, Anthony Lloyd will find her in a field, controlled by the Kurds, wearing her burqa and defiant. There the last of her three children died and the de-radicalization process began, which the British government does not want to recognize.
“Shamima Begum, the woman who claims that as a schoolgirl she was trafficked by ISIS for sexI knew what I was doing and must have been aware of the “uncompromising brutality” of the terrorist group,” said MI5, the British secret service, at the hearing to restore or not his nationality.
Witness E said: “It is inconceivable that an intelligent, eloquent and presumably critical thinking individual would not know what it was about. In a sense, I think she would have known what she was doing.”
His lawyers maintain that the “girl-girlfriend” she was “trafficked for sexual exploitation.”
The arguments
Shamima Begum, who has already turned 23, was 15 when she joined ISIS with two schoolmates.
Begum launched a new appeal against the stripping of her British citizenship with her legal team on Monday, arguing that was cynically recruited, groomed and trafficked to Syriabefore marrying an older man, within days of her arrival in 2015.
MI5’s assessment is that Begum still poses a serious risk to Britain’s security and that, as a very good student at her east London school, it was “inconceivable” that she didn’t know what she was doing.
Giving evidence at the Special Immigration Appeals Commission (Siac), an MI5 official, known only as Witness E, said that “ISIS had already carried out terrorist attacks and public beheadings, including those of British aid workers David Haines and Alan Henning.”
MI5 witness E insisted: “In a sense, I think she would have known what she was doing.”
Sexually exploited, Begum joined the terror group with two schoolmates from Bethnal Green, east London. Initially he said he “had no regrets” when The Times he discovered it in a refugee camp in Syria in 2019, when the self-proclaimed caliphate of ISIS collapsed.
But he has since apologized, shed his burqadressed as a westerner, was transferred to another camp, fearing that she would be attacked by other ISIS women.
Samantha Knights KC, representing Begum, told SIAC that Sajid Javid, then Home Secretary, took “overly hasty steps” to strip Begum of citizenship, less than a week after she was found and following a backlash. public against her.
Written arguments submitted by Dan Squires KC, leader of Begum’s legal team, said evidence that she was recruited, transported, housed and received in Syria, for the purposes of “sexual exploitation” and “marriage” with a grown man, she was “overwhelming.”
Anthony Lloyd, the journalist from The Times who discovered her, said: “She was following a well-known pattern, whereby ISIS cynically recruited and groomed girls, as young as 14, so that they could offer themselves as ‘wives’ to adult men.”
married without consent
Begum she was unable to give consent when she was “married” with Iago Reidijk, a Dutch citizen who was much older than her, ten days after her arrival in Syria. It is claimed that the Ministry of the Interior did not adequately consider his situation. While MI5 assessed that her trip was voluntary, her legal team said she was assisted by a Canadian double agent, who helped facilitate the trip to Syria.
It follows claims of a cover-up by British authorities, after The Times revealed in August that the Metropolitan Police allegedly knew that a human trafficker, working for Canadian intelligence, was responsible for helping Begum and her friends and did nothing to stop it.
Begum’s legal team said it was “unclear whether the British authorities were aware of her activities. If they had been, action could have been taken when the three teenagers were reported missing,” they said.
The Home Office argues that it was right to block Begum because she remains a security threat.
Sir James Eadie KC, speaking on behalf of Suella Braverman, the Home Secretary, said that “women members of ISIS are likely to be radicalized and have undergone military training.” He said that while one of her friends wanted to return home in November 2015, police believed Begum did not share that desire and “continued to support” ISIS after her arrival on her territory.
lost in court
His case reached the High Court last year when he argued – unsuccessfully – that he should be allowed to enter Britain on his appeal. The hearing is expected to last another four days.
The result has been a lengthy legal process as Begum struggles to return home. His initial case, that he should be allowed to return to Britain to fight the stripping of his citizenship, was thrown out by the High Court last year, which found that security concerns trumped his right to a fair appeal and effective.
Begum faces an uncertain future, regardless of what the court decides. Today Begum remains in the al-Roj closed camp in Syria, under Kurdish control.
This week’s hearing will go into closed session to hear evidence about the alleged risk she poses to Britain’s security.
However, even if Begum regains her citizenship, that doesn’t mean she will be immediately repatriated. She does not have travel documents. In any case, the Kurdish forces running her camps are likely to be holding her there. The British have no interest in repatriating her.
missed opportunities
Police and her British school missed opportunities to stop Shamima from traveling to Syria and joining ISIS and should have arrested her, according to her lawyers.
There were doubts as to whether missed “key indicators” Begum and her two school friends were at risk of being trafficked, Begum’s lawyers said at a hearing appealing against her loss of citizenship.
“The police did not control the girls’ use of social networks. MI5 did not control the interaction between the girls and ISIS recruiters.”they said.
There were also questions about whether precautionary measures should have been taken to alert police at London airports of the risk of their traveling to Turkey, on a “known traffic route”.
Begum’s friend and schoolmate, Sharmeena Begum, also then 15, traveled to ISIS-controlled territory in Syria on December 5, 2014.
Shamima and her two school friends, Khadiza Sultana and Amira Abase, left Britain two months later, on February 17, 2015, traveling to Syria via Turkey. One is dead and the whereabouts or status of the other is unknown.
PB