Jihadi bride Shamima Begum has lost her first bid to challenge the removal of her British citizenship at the Supreme Court.
A judicial spokesperson confirmed on Monday that Ms. Begum had asked the Court of Appeal for permission to take her case to the Supreme Court, but was refused.
Ms. Begum may now ask the Supreme Court directly for permission to have her case heard.
In 2105, 15-year-old Ms. Begum and her school friends Amira Abase, also 15, and Kadiza Sultana, 16, left their homes in east London and travelled, via Turkey, to Syria to join the ISIS terror group.
She married Dutch jihadi Yago Riedijk and had three children with him, but her husband and the children all died. She was found in a Syrian refugee camp in February 2019.
Then-Home Secretary Sajid Javid stripped her of her citizenship on national security grounds, meaning she is not allowed to return to the UK.
In a preliminary ruling in February 2020, the Special Immigration Appeals Commission (SIAC) had ruled the decision to deprive Ms. Begum of her citizenship was lawful as she was “a citizen of Bangladesh by descent.”
Special Immigration Appeals Commission Dismissed Legal Challenge
In one of her most recent legal battles, the 23-year-old’s lawyers had challenged the decision before the SIAC in November 2023, but she lost that bid.However, Mr. Justice Jay said that while there was a “credible suspicion” she had been trafficked, this was not enough for her appeal to succeed.
The Home Office praised the court ruling, telling The Epoch Times at the time, “We are pleased that the court has found in favour of the government’s position in this case.”
The spokesperson continued, “The government’s priority remains maintaining the safety and security of the UK and we will robustly defend any decision made in doing so.”
Mr. Javid also welcomed the ruling, “which has again upheld my decision to remove an individual’s citizenship on national security grounds.”
Court of Appeal Dismissal
Then in February 2024, three judges at the Court of Appeal dismissed her attempt to overturn the SIAC decision, saying that it could be argued that the young woman was “the author of her own misfortune.”“But it is not for this court to agree or disagree with either point of view. The only task of the court was to assess whether the deprivation decision was unlawful. Since it was not, Ms Begum’s appeal is dismissed,” the ruling said.
Following the Court of Appeal decision, Ms. Begum’s solicitor, Daniel Furner, said, “I want to say that I’m sorry to Shamima and to her family that after five years of fighting she still hasn’t received justice in a British court, and to promise her and promise the government that we are not going to stop fighting until she does get justice and until she is safely back home.”
