Labour's stance on Shamima Begum legal challenge spelled out in update by Shabana Mahmood - The Mirror

Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood told MPs that the Government will 'robustly defend' the decision to strip former ISIS bride Shamima Begum of her UK citizenship

Shabana Mahmood has vowed to "robustly" defend the decision to strip ISIS bride Shamima Begum of her citizenship.

The Home Secretary said the Government will not budge in the face of a fresh legal challenge. Lawyers for Ms Begum argue she was "lured, encouraged and deceived for the purposes of sexual exploitation" at the age of 15. The European Court of Human Rights has demanded answers from Britain over the controversial move.

Asked about the case in the Commons, Ms Mahmood told MPs: "Let me be very clear that the case in relation to Shamima Begum has been litigated by the previous government all the way to the UK Supreme Court, who did not hear the last appeal on this because all legal questions have been now dealt with.

"We have accepted that position, and our position as a government on this case will not change. We will robustly defend this at the European Court of Human Rights."

It came after Tory Shadow Home Secretary demanded an assurance that the Government will not allow Ms Begum to return. He said she "chose to support the Daish (ISIS) regime which murdered civilians, raped thousands of women and girls and killed people for being gay."

London-born Ms Begum, who was a schoolgirl when she travelled to territory held by the so-called Islamic State, is challenging the decision to strip her of UK citizenship in February 2019.

Former Tory Home Secretary Sir Sajid Javid made the move after she was branded a threat to national security. Ms Begum, who married an ISIS fighter, is currently in a Syrian camp.

Her lawyers are challenging the decision under Article 4 of the European Convention on Human Rights - prohibition of slavery and forced labour. It comes after the UK Supreme Court denied her the chance to challenge the move.

Judges in Strasbourg have asked the Home Office whether the Government should have considered if Ms Begum was a victim of trafficking. Lawyer Gareth Peirce said: "It is impossible to dispute that a 15-year-old British child was in 2014/15 lured, encouraged and deceived for the purposes of sexual exploitation to leave home and travel to Isil-controlled territory for the known purpose of being given, as a child, to an Isil fighter to propagate children for the Islamic State.

"It is equally impossible not to acknowledge the catalogue of failures to protect a child known for weeks beforehand to be at high risk when a close friend had disappeared to Syria in an identical way and via an identical route. It has already been long conceded that the then home secretary, Sajid Javid, who took the precipitous decision in 2019 very publicly to deprive Ms Begum of citizenship, had failed entirely to consider the issues of grooming and trafficking of a school child in London and of the state's consequent duties."

Ms Begum, now 26, travelled to Syria in 2015 alongside two schoolfriends - Amira Abase and Kadiza Sultana. Both have been reported dead.

Shortly after arriving in Syria she married a 23-year-old ISIS recruit. Ms Begum gave birth to three children, all of who have died.