Daesh bride Shamima Begum has lost her legal appeal against the British government's ban on her returning to the UK.
Begum, now aged 23, had appealed an earlier ruling upholding then home secretary Sajid Javid's decision in 2019 to revoke her British citizenship after she was taken prisoner in Syria.
Her legal team argued at the Special Immigration Appeals Commission (SIAC) hearings that she was an underage victim of sexual trafficking, which authorities should have acted to prevent, and that Javid's decision had violated her human rights.
But lawyers for the Home Office said it "continues to assess" that Begum poses a threat to the UK.
Begum's team vowed that the case was "nowhere near over" after the defeat, which followed a 2021 Supreme Court ruling denying her entry to the UK while she continued her battle to regain citizenship.
Among them was well-known solicitor and campaigner for wrongly-imprisoned people Gareth Pierce, who called the ruling "an extraordinary judgment delivered in an extraordinary way."
She said the commission "is clearly deeply troubled by the case it is having to decide and by the limitations placed on it by the Supreme Court."
"The implication, 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," Pierce claimed.
Begum, then only 15, and two other girls from the same school in east London flew to Turkiye in 2015 before crossing the border into northern Syria for arranged marriages to Daesh terrorists. She was wed to another European recruit, Dutchman Yago Riedijk.
They had three children together, all of whom died in infancy — the third in the notorious al-Hawl prison camp run by Washington-backed Kurdish separatist insurgents in the area of north-east Syria still illegally occupied by US troops.
The Dutch government has refused to let Riedijk, also a prisoner of the Kurdish forces, return to the Netherlands.
In a concession to Begum's legal team, the tribunal ruled that "the motive for bringing her to Syria was sexual exploitation to which, as a child, she could not give a valid consent."
"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 that there are shades of grey," said Mr Justice Jay in his conclusion.
1 September 2022, 09:37 GMT
Begum has since changed her image from the black-robed and veiled enforced of the strict Daesh dress code to that of a secular Western woman, and has apologized for her decision to join the sectarian terrorist army in several interviews.
The Times Magazine came under fire earlier in February for publishing a 'glow-up' cover photo of the jihadi bride in her new look, with a sympathetic interview at the al-Roj camp where prisoners are allowed to buy fashion goods and make-up from a shop. The BBC was also condemned for releasing an online podcast series by Begum entitled 'I'm Not a Monster.'
The Home Office said it would continue to oppose Begum's return.
"The government's priority remains maintaining the safety and security of the UK and we will robustly defend any decision made in doing so," a spokeswoman said.
*Daesh, also known as ISIS/IS/Islamic State is a terrorist organization banned in Russia and internationally by UN Security Council resolutions.