UK Court Denies Return of British-Moroccan Ex-Jihadist, Upholds Citizenship Revocation

A British-Moroccan jihadist, identified for legal reasons as U3, cannot return to the United Kingdom. The Special Immigration Appeals Commission (SIAC) rejected last Friday the appeal she had filed following the revocation of her nationality in 2017, reports The National News. She is asking to return to the country to join her three children. According to the court, the British government had not acted unreasonably in stripping U3 of her nationality, considering her to be a threat. It could "rationally assess, in April 2017, that U3 was ideologically affiliated with the Islamic State when she left for Turkey and that she still is."

The young woman, now in her thirties, traveled to Syria via Turkey with her husband and two children, then aged 2 and 1, in 2014. Two years later, the couple had another child. The court learned that the woman had been the victim of abuse from her husband even before their marriage in 2011. He would have beaten her with an electrical cable during their stay on the territory of the Islamic State in Syria. When he took another wife, U3 reprimanded him, which he did not appreciate. He beat her this time with a metal rod he used to clean his weapon.

The woman last saw him in 2017 as the couple were trying to flee separately to Turkey from Syria. At the time, Iraq had defeated the Islamic State. According to court documents, U3 was captured as she was heading towards the border with the help of a smuggler. Her children were sent back to the UK in 2019 and she has remained in contact with them via video call. The decision of the Special Immigration Appeals Commission has just dashed her hopes of joining them.