Shamima Begum will not be allowed back into the UK, Foreign Secretary David Lammy told Good Morning Britain, after Donald Trump aide Sebastian Gorka said she and other ISIS prisoners should return
Shamima Begum will not be allowed to return to the UK, David Lammy said said.
The Foreign Secretary’s remarks come after Donald Trump’s incoming counter-terrorism chief said British members of ISIS currently in Syrian prison camps should be repatriated. There has been uncertainty on what will happen to London-born Ms Begum since the fall of the Assad regime.
Sebastian Gorka, who is set for the key role in the Trump administration, said any nation that wishes to be seen as a “serious ally” of the US should commit to taking back citizens in north eastern Syria. But Mr Lammy said the Government would “always put British security interests first and the safeguarding of our population”.
Hetold ITV’s Good Morning Britain : “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.”
Some of them, if they were to return to the UK, “would have to be, frankly, jailed as soon as they arrived”, he added.
Ms Begum was 15 when she travelled from Bethnal Green, east London, into territory controlled by IS in 2015. She was “married off” to an IS fighter and was stripped of her British citizenship in February 2019.
In an interview with The Times, Mr Gorka said: “Any nation which wishes to be seen to be a serious ally and friend of the most powerful nation in the world should act in a fashion that reflects that serious commitment” when asked if the UK should be forced to accept Isis members back.
“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.”
The Syrian Democratic Forces, the anti-Assad group allied with the West, has been guarding tens of thousands of captured foreign IS members and their children in sprawling camps and detention centres. The Times reported that Ms Begum is one of up to 20 women, 40 children and 10 men from Britain being held in camps.
