Shamima Begum who fled Britain to join a terror group in Syria has lost her appeal against the revocation of her British passport.
MI5 said Ms Begum still posed a threat to the UK’s national security.
Ms Begum was aged 15 when she joined Islamic State (IS).
Now aged 23 she launched a legal challenge to the loss of her citizenship.
She claimed MI5 was wrong to conclude she was a threat.
Sheargued she’d been trafficked to Syria for sexual exploitation.
Mr Justice Jay, sitting at the Special Immigration Appeals Commission (SIAC), rejected Ms Begum’s legal challenge.
He agreed there was a “credible suspicion” Ms Begum was a victim of trafficking to Syria.
He said: “The motive of bringing her to Syria was sexual exploitation for which, as a child, she could not give valid consent.”
However, the commission concluded the Home Secretary was not formally required to consider whether Ms Begum was a victim of trafficking when he removed her citizenship.
Mr Justice Jay said there was “considerable force” to Ms Begum’s argument that the home secretary’s conclusion she travelled voluntarily was “as stark as it is unsympathetic”.
He continued: “Further, there is some merit in the argument that those advising the Secretary of State see this as a black-and-white issue, when many would say there are shades of grey.”
The judge said: “If asked to evaluate all the circumstances of Ms Begum’s case,
reasonable people with knowledge of all the relevant evidence will differ, in particular in relation to the issue of the extent to which her travel to Syria was voluntary and the weight to be given to that factor in the context of all others.
“Likewise, reasonable people will differ as to the threat she posed in February 2019 to the national security of the United Kingdom, and as to how that threat should be balanced against all countervailing considerations.
“However, under our constitutional settlement, these sensitive issues are for the Secretary of State to evaluate and not for the commission.”
The Home Secretary was said to maintain that “national security is a weighty factor and that it would take a very strong countervailing case to outweigh it”.
The ruling continued:
“Reasonable people will profoundly disagree with the Secretary of State, but that raises wider societal and political which it is not the role of this commission to address.”
It was feared if Ms Begum won her case it would set a precedent to create an influx of dangerous jihadists into the UK.
There was concern that up to 150 terror suspects, similarly stripped of their British citizenship, could also have tried to challenge their own rulings if Ms Begum’s case succeeded.
In the full written judgment, Mr Justice Jay added:
“The state may have failed in its duties to Ms Begum before she travelled to Syria,
she is now well beyond the scope of its protections.”
The evidence of both an MI5 witness and a Home Office counter-terror official “betrayed an all-or-nothing approach”, the ruling said.
children since travelling to the warzone.
A Home Office spokesman said:
“We are pleased that the court has found in favour of the Government’s position in this case.
“The Government’s priority remains maintaining the safety and security of the UK and we will robustly defend any decision made in doing so.”
Speaking outside court Gareth Peirce, one of Ms Begum’s lawyers, said:
“The outcome that we face is that no British child who has been trafficked outside the UK will be protected by the British state if the Home Secretary invokes national security.”
