Jihadi bride Shamima Begum has been granted legal aid to fight the decision to remove her citizenship, the Mail can reveal today
Jihadi bride Shamima Begum has been granted legal aid to fight the decision to remove her citizenship, the Mail can reveal today.
In a decision blasted as ‘disgusting’ and ‘ridiculous’ by MPs, lawyers have successfully asked for taxpayers’ cash on her behalf, arguing that Home Secretary Sajid Javid’s decision was unfair on the 19-year-old Islamic State acolyte.
It means taxpayers face a legal bill which could run into hundreds of thousands of pounds to fund the former London schoolgirl’s fight to come back to the UK. She is currently in a refugee camp in Syria.
Last night there was fury at the decision by the Legal Aid Agency (LAA), which emerged on the day it was alleged that Begum had stitched suicide bombers into explosive vests. It was also claimed she carried a Kalashnikov rifle and served in a senior role in the IS’s ‘morality police’ as an enforcer of its laws.
The British-born schoolgirl left her family in East London to join IS the age of 15 in February 2015. She lived in the Syrian city of Raqqa and married a Dutch jihadi named Yago Riedijk with whom she had three children, all of whom died as infants.
After being missing for four years, the teenager resurfaced at a refugee camp earlier this year saying she wanted to come home and pleading to be allowed back.
In a dramatic move, Mr Javid ordered that she be stripped of her citizenship ‘in order to protect this country’.
However, the Mail has now learnt that British taxpayers will help pay for her court battle to return, even though Begum has not applied for legal aid herself, nor formally instructed lawyers.
In a decision blasted as ‘disgusting’ and ‘ridiculous’ by MPs, lawyers have successfully asked for taxpayers’ cash on her behalf, arguing that Home Secretary Sajid Javid’s decision was unfair on the 19-year-old Islamic State acolyte
It means taxpayers face a legal bill which could run into hundreds of thousands of pounds to fund the former London schoolgirl’s fight
Although lawyers have not been able to speak to her in the refugee camp, the LAA has apparently accepted that her family can initiate an appeal and apply for funding on her behalf. In an extraordinary twist, two law firms applied for the cash on her behalf, with one claiming it had instructions through a third party, but the LAA agreed to grant the funding only to lawyers instructed by her family.
Begum will not be able to attend the case – which will be decided by the Special Immigration Appeals Commission (SIAC) – because she has been barred from returning to Britain.
By Daily Mail reporter
Extremists loyal to the all-but-destroyed Islamic State caliphate are still plotting attacks in the West.
Documents outlining plans for truck attacks, robberies and new modes of mass-murder atrocities were found on a memory stick dropped by a fighter in Syria this year, The Sunday Times reports.
The notes also reveal the decimated group’s desperate thirst for further funding. One document details plans of ‘killing infidel venture capitalists, hacking banks through bank accounts, bank robberies or robberies of places that are pre-studied’. It adds: ‘After any operation of this kind, we will send the money as we procure it.’
According to the newspaper, the message was addressed to IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, and reveals an individual named Abu Khabab al-Muhajir will run foreign operations.
It states he already controls two cells in Germany and one in Russia. The document describes the 2015 Paris attacks as an example of future ‘special operations’.
Last night, there was outrage over the decision, particularly from those who had been denied legal aid in other high-profile cases. A relative of one of the four soldiers killed in the Hyde Park bombing said he was ‘disgusted’ by the move.
Mark Tipper, whose brother Trooper Simon Tipper, 19, was killed in the 1982 atrocity, was refused funding to pursue IRA terrorist John Downey in the civil courts, although the decision was later reversed following public outrage.
Mr Tipper said: ‘It’s absolutely disgusting. You have got someone who has turned their back on their country and supports a terrorist group, then wants to come back and what does the Legal Aid Agency do? Gives her money to fund that fight.
‘It’s extraordinary, it’s totally wrong and it just shows how bad the legal aid system is.’
Tasnime Akunjee, a lawyer who has represented Begum’s family since 2015, confirmed that legal aid had been granted after an application was made on March 19. Mr Akunjee launched the appeal against Mr Javid’s decision but he was unable to take formal instruction from Begum after authorities at the al-Roj refugee camp would not let him see her.
He passed the case to renowned human rights solicitor Gareth Peirce, who has represented British clients held outside of the UK such as former Guantanamo Bay detainee Moazzam Begg.
Ordinarily, anyone seeking legal aid has to apply in writing or online, filling out a form supplying evidence of eligibility such as bank statements or pay slips to satisfy the means test. But Mr Akunjee said Miss Peirce had satisfied the authorities that the normal documentation could not be provided.
By Mail Foreign Service
Iraq has started trial proceedings for nearly 900 suspected members of the Islamic State terror group caught fleeing jihadi territory in neighbouring Syria.
The Iraqis were handed over to Baghdad authorities by the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces, which ousted IS from swathes of eastern Syria.
‘We received the interrogation files of nearly 900 Iraqi Daesh (IS) members coming from Syria,’ a court official said. ‘The specialised terrorism court has begun setting dates for their trial in batches.’
Iraq has already tried thousands of its own nationals arrested on home soil for joining IS – including women – and has sentenced hundreds to death.
The country remains in the top five ‘executioner’ nations, according to Amnesty International. The number of death sentences issued by Iraqi courts quadrupled from 65 in 2017 to at least 271 last year.
Iraq has also tried hundreds of foreigners, condemning many to life in prison and others to death, although no foreign IS members have yet been executed.
He added: ‘I represent the family who initially brought the case on behalf of Shamima Begum, but the family are not entitled to legal aid – the legal aid is for Shamima Begum alone.’
Even though Begum is no longer a British citizen, legal aid rules state that funding should be available if the case is held in a British court and you have no means to pay.
Yesterday, MPs said the ‘ridiculous’ decision demonstrated the need to reform the legal aid system. Tory MP Philip Davies said: ‘It’s absolutely disgusting how we are funding this person who is someone who joined an organisation that wants to destroy our way of life and our country.
‘How she has been allowed to sponge off taxpayers’ money to get back into a country that she hates is absolutely ridiculous.’
Tory MP Tim Loughton, former chairman of the home affairs select committee, said: ‘This shows that
