Shamima Begum won't come back to UK, insists David Lammy, after US says Britain should take back IS terrorists
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Shamima Begum will not be returning to the UK, the Foreign Secretary insisted on Thursday following calls from Donald Trump's incoming counter-terrorism chief for the repatriation of British members of Islamic State (IS) in Syria. Sebastian Gorka, who will sit on the White House National Security Council when Trump takes office later this month, said nations wishing to be seen as "serious” allies of the US should commit to the international fight against the extremist group by taking back citizens held in Syrian prison camps.
In August last year the Supreme Court ruled that former Bethnal Green schoolgirl Ms Begum, 24, will not be allowed to challenge the decision to revoke her citizenship on national security grounds after she travelled from London as a teenager to join the Islamic State group.
She was aged 15 when she was "married off" to an IS fighter and later stripped of her British citizenship in February 2019. Foreign Secretary David Lammy said the Government would "always put British security interests first and the safeguarding of our population".
He told Times Radio: “Shamima Begum, the courts found she's not a British citizen, so she will not be coming back. In the end, it's our job to safeguard the British public.”. “We, of course, are working and speaking to those who are now running Syria,” he added, when asked about current UK citizens who are members of ISIS.
