“We have no doubt that we would be demanding that no expense be spared and not a moment wasted in having them returned to the safety of their homes in England.”
But Colonel Richard Kemp, former commander of British forces in Afghanistan, said: “There are plenty of examples of people who are not of colour and who are terrorists being treated in the same robust fashion.
“This is not about race, it is about protecting UK citizens from the horror of terrorism.” He cited the case of “Jihadi Jack” Letts, 26, who had his citizenship revoked after allegedly joining ISIS.
Within days of arriving in Syria, Ms Begum was married to Dutch-born jihadist Yago Riedijk, a convert to Islam.
She has since had three children, all of whom died, and has been locked up in two Kurdish-run detention camps in north-east Syria, following the defeat of ISIS.
Her citizenship was revoked on national security grounds after she was found, nine months pregnant, in a Syrian refugee camp in February 2019.
Her first two children had already died and her third, son Jerah, died in the al-Roj camp in March 2019, shortly after he was born, of a lung infection.
Sir Anish said: “Shamima is a British citizen, and it is her right to be tried in the British courts by a jury of her peers for any offence she may have committed.”
