UK top court blocks IS bride Shamima Begum's return to Britain

A British-born woman who went to Syria to join the IS terror group should not be allowed to return to the country to challenge the government taking away her citizenship, the UK's Supreme Court ruled on Friday.

Shamima Begum left London in 2015 when she was 15 and went to Syria via Turkey with two school friends where she married an IS fighter.

Begum, 21, who is being held in a detention camp in Syria, was stripped of her British citizenship in 2019 but the Court of Appeal previously agreed she could only have a fair appeal of that decision if she were allowed back to Britain.

But the country's top court overturned that decision, meaning that although she can still pursue her appeal against the decision, she cannot do that in Britain.

The British government had argued that the intelligence agencies concluded those who aligned with the IS posed a serious risk to national security.

"If a vital public interest - in this case, the safety of the public - makes it impossible for a case to be fairly heard, then the courts cannot ordinarily hear it," the Supreme Court judges concluded.

Begum's case has been the subject of a heated debate in Britain, pitting those who say she forsook her right to citizenship by travelling to join IS against those who argue she should not be left stateless but rather face trial in Britain.