Shamima Begum Not Coming Back to UK, Says Lammy

Foreign Secretary David Lammy speaking at the Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office in London, England, on Jan. 9, 2025. Stefan Rousseau/PA Wire

Jihadi bride Shamima Begum will not be coming back to the UK, Foreign Secretary David Lammy has said.

Lammy made the remarks in response to President-elect Donald Trump’s incoming counterterrorism chief calling for the UK to repatriate citizens who fought for the ISIS terrorist group and are being held in prison camps in Syria.

Speaking to ITV’s “Good Morning Britain” on Thursday, Lammy said the government would “always put British security interests first and the safeguarding of our population.”

The foreign secretary said: “Shamima Begum will not be coming back to the UK. It’s gone right through the courts. She’s not a UK national.

“We will not be bringing her back to the UK. We’re really clear about that. We will act in our security interests and many of those in those camps are dangerous, are radicals.”

He added that some of them, if they did return to the UK, “would have to be, frankly, jailed as soon as they arrived.”

The Western-allied Syrian Democratic Forces has been guarding thousands of captured foreign ISIS members, along with their wives and children, in detention camps in north-east Syria.

National Security Priorities

In an interview with The Times earlier in the week, Sebastian Gorka, who will be taking on the role of director of counterterrorism and deputy assistant to the president on Jan. 20, was asked whether the UK should take back its own foreign fighters from Syria.

Gorka responded, “Any nation which wishes to be seen as a serious ally and friend of the most powerful nation in the world should act in a fashion that reflects that serious commitment.”

“That is doubly so for the UK, which has a very special place in President Trump’s heart, and we would all wish to see the ‘special relationship’ fully re-established,” Gorka added.

Asked about the comments from the incoming senior White House official, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said those who went to Syria to join ISIS will be “determined on a case-by-case basis.”

But the “driving principle will be ‘What is in our national security?’” he told the BBC.

In February 2023, Jonathan Hall, KC, the UK’s independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, said there are around 900 UK-linked individuals who travelled to Iraq or Syria to join ISIS, and that of the approximately 450 who did not return, “only a fraction remain in prisons and camps.”

Hall said that there are no official figures, but estimates there are around 60 UK-linked children, with a smaller number of women and an unknown number of men.

Jihadi Bride

Begum was 15 when she left her home in east London to travel to ISIS-controlled territory in Syria in 2015 to marry Dutch jihadi Yago Riedijk, who, along with the three children they had together, later died.

In 2019, she was found in a Syrian camp.

Following concerns that she represented a security threat, then-Home Secretary Sajid Javid stripped Begum of her citizenship, meaning she could not return to the UK.

The government said at the time that their decision did not render her stateless, as she was a citizen of Bangladesh by descent.

Shamima Begum being interviewed by Sky News in northern Syria on Feb. 17, 2019. Reuters

Her lawyers subsequently challenged and lost several appeals to the decision. The latest was in August, when she was denied the chance to challenge the ruling in the High Court.

Begum’s lawyers, at Birnberg Peirce Solicitors, said after the ruling that they would consider taking further legal action, including petitioning the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, France.

Lawful Decision

It was during the Court of Appeal hearing in February 2024 that judges unanimously agreed that the Home Office’s decision to remove Begum’s British citizenship was lawful.

The Lady Chief Justice Baroness Carr had said: “It could be argued the decision in Ms. Begum’s case was harsh.

“It could also be argued that Ms. Begum is 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.”