Runaway ISIS bride, Shamima Begum could well be able to return to Britain after a landmark court ruling involving another female terror suspect. The teenager’s legal team managed to get her case thrown out of court by claiming she had been a victim of sexual exploitation. In a case without precedent, the teenage girl – who can not be named – stood accused of possessing instructions on how to make a gun. She was also accused of having an instructional video explaining how to make bombs.
The teen’s case was dismissed when the Home Office accepted her legal team’s defence that an extremist had been to blame for her actions, after he had groomed her online, and sexually exploited her.
As a result of this incredible legal ruling, Tasnime Akunjee, Begum’s lawyer, said, “Shamima has been arguing this from the beginning. This just strengthens her case”. The lawyer claims that the British government failed to take into consideration that Begum was trafficked into Syria in 2015 when she ran away and joined the terror organisation ISIS.
“Being both a victim of modern slavery, and presenting a risk to the general public are not incompatible”, commented independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, Jonathan Hall QC.
Adding, “If fewer criminal cases are going to be possible, this begs the question whether there are sufficient non-criminal justice measures in place, in particular, to deal with the terrorist risk presented by children”.
In recent interviews, Begum has
often denounced her previous life in Syria, where she married an ISIS fighter within three weeks of arriving in the country. Last year the 22-year-old claimed to have been the victim of online grooming, which resulted in her leaving
Bethnal Green in London, as a 15-year-old, accompanied by two friends.
Stripped of her British citizenship, she is now living in the Syrian
Al-Roj refugee camp. Last February, the Supreme Court ruled Begum a security risk, and she was banned from returning to the UK, but, if her lawyer can exploit this latest court ruling then who knows what might happen in the future, as reported by
standard.co.uk.