Shamima Begum will be ‘in tears’ in her tent after citizenship refusal, a filmmaker has claimed.
Andrew Drury, 56, met Begum six times between 2021 and 2022, forming a connection so close the pair swapped WhatsApp messages.
But now the Special Immigration Appeals Commission (SIAC) has rejected Begum’s appeal to have her citizenship reinstated, marking her final attempt through a court based on British soil. Mr Drury uncovered the former ISIS bride in 2021 after she had stopped speaking to journalists since giving an infamous "heads in bins" interview to Antony Loyd from the Times in 2019.
Andrew Drury said: “It’s a strange feeling having known Shamima for such a long period of time. If you ask me ‘have the courts made the right decision?’ It’s a difficult one.
“On the one hand yes, because of what I know about her, but on the other hand no, because I believe she should face trial in the UK.
“Now she is rejected, I don’t know where that leaves her now, she will probably be in tears in her tent.
However, Drury said despite his misgivings over Begum’s character, he does believe she should still face trial in the UK because the situation in Syria where she is held is not stable long term.
In her citizenship refection, Mr Justice Jay, found that there was a “credible suspicion” she was a victim of trafficking, however, Mr Jay concluded that the Home Secretary was not formally required to consider this when he removed her citizenship.
Mr Jay also said the Secretary of State’s conclusion that she travelled voluntarily to Syria was "as stark as it is unsympathetic."
Begum's lawyer has said it’s far from over and will be challenging the judgement. Their statement read: "Regrettably, this is a lost opportunity to put into reverse a profound mistake and a continuing injustice."
Begum married the notoriously hardline IS member Dutch national Yago Riedijk, 27, aged just 15 and had three children with him who all later died.
She was found by a British journalist in a refugee camp in 2019, after IS lost the ground war in Syria, thus making the government aware she was still alive.
Begum's British citizenship was then stripped and she was banned from entering Britain following being deemed a threat to the nation — she has been fighting to return to the UK ever since.
Bahrain and Nicaragua (very recently) are the only countries other than the UK that strip citizenship in bulk. Since 2000, the UK has deprived at least 212 people of citizenship: more than ten times as many as France or Australia.
In 2020, the Court of Appeal gave her permission to return to the UK to appeal her revoked citizenship. Then in 2021, the Supreme Court overturned this, finding national security fears outweighed right to an effective hearing.
Giving the decision of the tribunal, Mr Justice Jay said today that "reasonable people will differ" over the circumstances of Begum's case and that those advising the Secretary of State see this as a black and white issue, when many would say "that there are shades of grey.
Begum and her two friends were not stopped by the police, school and local authority and the commission said that that there were state failures and possible violations of the [state’s] corollary protective duty, between December 2014 and February 2015, which could be investigated.
Sayeeda Hussain Warsi, a British lawyer, Conservative politician, and member of the House of Lords said: "In the last decade, the use of citizenship-stripping has been radically expanded by the Government.
These extreme powers have been used almost exclusively against Muslims, mainly of South Asian, Middle-Eastern and African heritage, creating a two-tier citizenship system completely at odds with British values of fairness and equality before the law."
In a recent BBC documentary, Begum said whatever happens she does not expect to be let back and regardless of the decision she believes she will remain in Syria.
There are several British women who have British citizenship imprisoned in Camps in northeast Syria and they can’t come home because the Government refuses to repatriate them.
Until the Kurdish administration receives a request from the UK Government, it will not let them leave.
