Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt told the BBC broadcaster on Monday it would make him "very uncomfortable" if Shamima Begum, who had married a member of the Islamic State terrorist organization (IS, banned in Russia), received legal aid from the United Kingdom to claim back her UK citizenship
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 15th April, 2019) Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt told the BBC broadcaster on Monday it would make him "very uncomfortable" if Shamima Begum, who had married a member of the Islamic State terrorist organization (IS, banned in Russia), received legal aid from the United Kingdom to claim back her UK citizenship.Sky news reported earlier in the day that the family of Begum had applied for taxpayer-funded legal aid, although the Daily Mail newspaper reported on Sunday that Begum had already been granted this request.
"On a personal level, it makes me very uncomfortable because she made a series of choices and she knew the choices she was making, so I think we made decisions about her future based on those choices," the foreign secretary was quoted as saying.
At the same time, Hunt reportedly said that the decisions on legal aid were "independent from politicians."
On the other hand, Jeremy Corbyn, the leader of opposition Labour party, reportedly pointed out that Begum was a British citizen and had a right to apply for legal aid.
Corbyn called the idea to remove Begum's citizenship "questionable" and "wrong."
Begum left the United Kingdom in 2015 to join the IS in Syria, where she married a Dutch citizen. In February, Begum was discovered by a UK reporter in a refugee camp in Syria and said in an interview that she wanted to return to the United Kingdom.
UK Home Secretary Sajid Javid said in late February that Begum would be stripped of her UK citizenship. It was initially reported that Begum may have had Bangladeshi citizenship, but this was later disproved by the Bangladeshi Foreign Ministry.
When the journalist found Begum, she was pregnant, but her child died soon after birth.
Begum's story has become widely reported amid a larger discussion on what European countries can or should do about their citizens who had left to join the IS and would now like to return.
