Shamima Begum, the jihadist bride, was trafficked by ISIS for sexual exploitation, her lawyers said at a hearing to appeal against her citizenship being stripped.
She launched her main appeal against the decision, with her lawyers telling a court: “Shamima Begum is a young Muslim woman, someone about whom everyone can have an opinion.”
Samantha Knights KC, for Ms Begum, said on the first day of a five-day hearing at the Special Immigration Appeals Commission (SIAC) that they faced an “overwhelming impediment” to bringing the your case
His lawyers have brought together a range of experts to testify, including doctors and psychologists, who are experts in assessing how the teenage mind affects judgment.
Ms Begum was a “15-year-old British girl who was persuaded by a determined and effective ISIS propaganda machine to follow a pre-existing route and provide marriage for an ISIS fighter,” Knights told the court
His transfer to Syria, across the Turkish border, was assisted by a Canadian double agent, his lawyer added.
Ms Begum, now 23, left Britain with two friends from Bethnal Green Academy in east London, who are believed to have died in the conflict.
She was captured after the collapse of IS in January 2018 and taken to al-Hawl detention camp, before being transferred to al-Roj camp, where she has disowned the terrorist group and said that I wanted to go home.
However, in February 2019 he was stripped of his British citizenship on national security grounds amid a political dispute over whether he held dual British and Bangladeshi citizenship.
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3:44 “I didn’t hate Britain, I hated my life” – Begum
Begum was ‘cynically recruited and groomed’
Her lawyers also said Ms Begum was “cynically recruited and groomed” by ISIS so she could marry an older man within days of arriving on their soil.
“The evidence is overwhelming that she was recruited, transported, transferred, harbored and received in Syria by ISIS for the purpose of sexual exploitation and marriage to an adult man and was in fact married to an adult, significantly more older than her. within days of her arrival in Syria, becoming pregnant soon after,” they said.
Ms Begum, who was 15 when she arrived in Syria and “therefore could not consent to marriage or sexual activity”, was “married” on or about February 20, 2015, 10 days later of his arrival in Syria to Yago Reidijk. , a Dutch national who was “considerably older”, they added.
Ms Knights told the court that it is here that she is being “detained in conditions of indefinite detention by a non-state actor, lawyers and independent experts cannot access her and, to her detriment, she has been given access without restrictions. by the press”.
A witness from the Ministry of the Interior declares
He described the case as “extraordinary” and said Sajid Javid, the Home Secretary who stripped her of her citizenship, had taken “precipitous steps” less than a week after Ms Begum gave her first interview since arrest in Syria with the Times.
Mr Javid then introduced comments, including an article written by himself, into the process, Ms Knights said.
“This is in direct contrast to the precautionary approach set forth by our experts on how to assess the decisions, thoughts and behavior of a teenage girl involved in child marriage during her teenage years,” he added.
The Home Secretary’s duty to protect the public was not “monolithic” and required a “wider context” as well as consideration of the “safeguarding of victims” of trafficking, Ms Knights said.
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Philip Larkin, a Home Office witness, told the hearing there was “no formal conclusion” as to whether Ms Begum was a victim of human trafficking.
He accepted that Ms Begum must have been helped to cross the border, telling the court: “Anyone traveling illegally to the Turkish border with Syria would have needed help to make that journey.”
But she refused to say whether she had been “recruited” was a victim of “sexual exploitation”.
In July last year, the Supreme Court ruled against the Court of Appeal which had said she should be allowed to return as the risk of launching an attack could be “addressed and managed” .
MI5: ‘unthinkable’ Begum didn’t know what she was doing
MI5 said Ms Begum was an A-star pupil and it was “inconceivable” she did not know what she was doing.
Witness E was asked whether the Security Service considered trafficking a threat to Ms Begum’s national security and told the court: ‘MI5 are experts in national security and not experts in other things such as trafficking; it is better to leave them to people with qualifications in these areas.
“Our role was to provide the Home Office with the national security threat and that’s what we did.
“We assess whether someone is a threat and it’s important to note that victims can be very threatening if someone is actually a victim of trafficking.”
He added: “It is inconceivable in our view that anyone did not know what ISIL was doing as a terrorist organization at the time.”
Dan Squires KC, for Ms Begum, said in his submissions: “It is clear that ISIS deliberately and successfully recruited underage girls for the purposes of sexual exploitation and, in particular, child marriage, which , under international law, forced marriage and motherhood, which was an important feature of their state-building project, is considered one.
Shamima’s lawyers said it was “well documented” that ISIS was “cynically grooming the vulnerable and the young to join their movement”, citing the government’s own 2018 counter-terrorism strategy.
The document said the government had a “well-organised online propaganda campaign” which involved using the internet to prepare young people in the UK to travel to Syria.
Around 60 women and girls had traveled to ISIS-held territory as part of an “ISIS campaign to target vulnerable teenagers to become brides for jihadist fighters”, including 15 girls aged 20 and under, according to the figures of the Metropolitan. Police.
Victims of ISIS grooming included Begum’s friend Sharmeena Begum, who had traveled to ISIS-held territory in Syria as a 15-year-old girl on December 5, 2014.
A 15- or 16-year-old girl, known as ‘B’, who also lived in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, had tried to travel to Syria but had been intercepted and taken off a plane while still in the UK.
The hearing continues.