Inside story of ‘jihadi bride’ Shamima Begum’s appeal against losing her British citizenship

As she loses her bid to restore UK citizenship, Duncan Gardham revisits the controversial case of ‘jihadi bride’ Shamima Begum

‘Bethnal Green girl’: Shamima Begum (ABC News)

Shamima Begum was the “jihadi bride” from East London who joined Isis at the age of 15 and was found in a refugee camp in Syria, where she begged to be allowed to return home.

Her discovery – with the words “I’m a Bethnal Green girl” – provoked headlines across the world and fevered speculation about what she had been doing for the past four years. Unnamed sources claimed she had been a member of a female Isis enforcement squad or had been sewing vests for suicide bombers.

Facts were harder to come by. Begum and her two school schoolfriends, Kadiza Sultana, 16, and Amira Abase, 15, left Britain on a Turkish Airlines flight from Gatwick to Istanbul at 12.40pm on Tuesday 17 February 2015.