Shamima Begum refused UK Supreme Court appeal of citizenship removal

LONDON (Reuters): A British-born woman who went to Syria as a schoolgirl to join Daesh has been refused permission to appeal the removal of her British citizenship by the UK Supreme Court.

Shamima Begum left London in 2015 aged 15 and traveled with two school friends to Syria, where she married a Daesh fighter and gave birth to three children, all of whom died as infants.

The British government took away Begum’s citizenship on national security grounds in 2019, shortly after she was found in a detention camp in Syria.

Begum, now 24, argued the decision was unlawful, in part because British officials failed to properly consider whether she was a victim of trafficking, an argument that was rejected by a specialist tribunal in February 2023 and then the Court of Appeal earlier this year.

Judges at the UK’s highest court said on Wednesday she could not appeal the Court of Appeal’s ruling as the grounds of her case “do not raise an arguable point of law.”