Seems the jihadi bride Shamima Begum might be coming back to stand trial in the U.K.

lemongrove

While I understand the feelings of everyone who doesn’t want her back here, there are a few things to consider.
1. She was a teenager when she and her friends left the UK with romantic notions of marrying ‘warriors’ and living as they thought Allah would want ( ...yes, I know!)
2. Other than being married and having babies there, we don’t know if she committed crimes or not ( totally unknowable).
3. Am uneasy really with making any person ‘stateless’
4. I think that every country including ours, has to take responsibility for their own citizens, take them back and imprison if necessary.I really isn’t fair to any country to make them responsible for foreign terrorists and their dependents.

Absolutely spot on!

I was horrified when I heard she was to be allowed back to fight her case.

WHY are we so soft? Why ?

We have no idea what she is capable of once she is back here for good, which we all know will happen.

Madness.

She's British. All other arguments are moot really.

Try her. Imprison her here.

tickingbird

*Is it because she's got a foreign sounding name? Is it because she's Muslim?* No Trisher nothing quite so racist and simple as that. It’s because she ran away to join a bloodthirsty cult that brought terror and abject misery to thousands of people. By her own admission she was fine with the torture and evil punishments being handed out willy nilly and didn’t blanch at the sight of a severed head in a bin when she happened across it (as you do!).

How anyone can feel the slightest sympathy for her and any others like her is beyond me.

Do you really think she’s going to live a normal, law abiding life and present no danger to the general public?

Well said tickingbird!

@tickingbird She was also happy for Yazidi girls (many a lot younger than her) to be used as sex slaves.

I would also like to ask a question - if she had been a 15 year old boy who left to join IS would everyone be as keen to allow him back?

Ok if you are alleging that it is nothing to do with her name or her religion. If a 15 year old girl called Mary Jones had run away from her family, converted to Islam and married a jihadi should she be brought back to the country she was born in?

Do you mean like Sally Jones the IS recruiter? Or Mary Kaya? Or Jack Letts? Without doubt, the vast majority of the 850 British citizens who left the UK to leave the country to join IS were Muslim and, to use your definition, had "foreign sounding names", but to use that as a reason that the tidal wave of resentment for Begun to be allowed back here is poor and disingenuous on your part and shows a paucity of understanding.

It seems likely that the govt's appeal next week will fail. Guess their next move? Right - straight back to the Supreme Court. The very Court that they were attacking last autumn because Johnson couldn't get his own way over proroguing Parliament

I totally agree with Lemon and others on this one. These girls were underage vulnerable and susceptible to those appalling groomers, in fact they were the very people they would have preyed on. A letter sent home by the police to their parents via the girls?!!!!! Surprise, surprise it didn't get delivered! For a start removal of their passports might have been an idea?!! So many missed opportunities by the authorities!
I know she hasn't shown any remorse,but she is living in a camp where one word out of place could be a death sentence! So we don't really know how she feels as she's not going to say anything that might cost her dear! Remember the IRA, one word and you were 'toast'! I think we should make it quite clear that we are prepared to take back people who were underage (18) when they fled. Adults? not necessarily!

I do understand that she was probably led to believe she was doing the right thing in going to the middle east but if she comes back here she will always be a threat, no matter what she says now.
She will always be a target for terrorists to continue their dirty work.

Nations should deal with their own criminals. This girl is a British criminal our society is responsible for.

I am in two minds over Shamima Begum.

She was born here so like all British citizens the state has a duty of care .

On the other hand she decided to get on a plane and join the caliphate an organisation with one sole aim to destroy all non Muslim societies and kill as many non-Muslims as possible

We have no idea her true role in the above, I guess that she was complicit in as much as she knew of the actions / atrocities being perpetrated by those around her.

Unfortunately she is the UK’s problem and I hope and pray that once she is back in the UK the authorities do not have blood on their hands if she should decide to carry out the caliphates battle cry of attack from within

Perhaps all those who don't want her to return could explain exactly who should take responsibility for this woman. Bangladesh has said no. She could remain in refugee camps and we can hope that she is well supervised there. Of course if she isn't and she is the threat to security some imagine she could possibly abscond and become the terrorist she is already labelled. It's not too difficult to enter this country illegally and then she might be a real problem.
It really is time this country took proper responsibility for all the mistakes it has made in the Middle East which are the real cause of terrorism here.

tickingbird

*Is it because she's got a foreign sounding name? Is it because she's Muslim?* No Trisher nothing quite so racist and simple as that. It’s because she ran away to join a bloodthirsty cult that brought terror and abject misery to thousands of people. By her own admission she was fine with the torture and evil punishments being handed out willy nilly and didn’t blanch at the sight of a severed head in a bin when she happened across it (as you do!).

How anyone can feel the slightest sympathy for her and any others like her is beyond me.

Do you really think she’s going to live a normal, law abiding life and present no danger to the general public?

She's not being tried on what she did. That's for the future. The UK shouldn't just wash its hands of home-grown terrorists. We can't just transport our criminals to some far-flung land.

We have around 250 terrorists imprisoned in this country with about 30 to be released in the next 2/3 years. This madam wants things timing nicely to join the dozen or so extremists who will also be back on our streets at the same time or knowing our justice system---sooner. These evil people are always one step ahead of our law, it would seem.

Yet, the fact that an innocent man has been in prison for 35 years falls on deaf ears ! Sickening. This man has fought for justice from day one and not one politician has given him time of day, let alone the rights that terrorists have such as this woman being given the right to hold court over her citizenship.

trisher @ 10.18, quite agree with your post; we should take responsibility for our criminals; what I don't agree with is you trying to imply that the reason Begum is not wanted here is because "she's Muslim and has a foreign sounding name". This isn't about race or culture; it's about terrorism, safety and justice and that applies to everyone, no matter what they're called.

Talking on the phone with someone this morning who asked a very simple question - due to the pandemic court hearings have been held over Zoom, why can't her hearing also be held over Zoom - why does she have to be here in person?

Oldwoman70

Talking on the phone with someone this morning who asked a very simple question - due to the pandemic court hearings have been held over Zoom, why can't her hearing also be held over Zoom - why does she have to be here in person?

Fair point

Because Zoom is not secure, because internet connections fail, because sometimes there are delays involved, because she is British.

trisher

Kittye has she been tried and convicted of terrorist offences? If so I must have missed it. If not then she at least deserves a proper trial. After all as I said there are murderers and drug dealers brought back from Spain to stand trial why is her crime different?

Perhaps traitors should be treated differently?

That is a question rather than a statement.
If someone betrays their country then is stripping them of their citizenship a just punishment?

It's nothing to do with colour or religion
I think most people feel just as strongly about posh white Jack Letts.

trisher

Because Zoom is not secure, because internet connections fail, because sometimes there are delays involved, because she is British.

She is not British any longer.

That's the whole point of her appeal

trisher

Because Zoom is not secure, because internet connections fail, because sometimes there are delays involved, because she is British.

I think that there are secure sites for face to face conference calls.

I cannot see governments round the world not using a secure site for their conference calls.

she has become robotic, programmed, brainwashed. Give her a few years of lying low and then see

Maxwell's hearing was via Zoom.

I agree with those who say she was only a child herself when she left, vulnerable and misguided.
What concerns me now, however, is her total lack of feeling and her unemotional responses thus far. I would even go as far as saying she doesn't appear very maternal either. It really worries me that she seemed to value the lives of her own babies so little. She lacks appropriate emotion and that is dangerous.
But she is British and we can't not take responsibility.

I notice no-one has actually said who should be responsible for her or how she could be kept securely without returning here. It's astounding that people think we can make ourselves more secure by dumping anyone with possible terrorist connections in areas where unrest and war, which can be laid firmly at our door, could lead to the radicalisation of huge numbers of people.