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A tourist who befriended ISIS’s girlfriend, Shamima Begum, urged people not to treat jihadists as victims.
Andrew Drury, 56, the father of four, is a “dangerous tourist” from Surrey who has traveled to destinations including North Korea, Chernobyl and Iraq.
He formed a ‘strong friendship’ with Begum over the past two years, first meeting her in June 2021 in the al-Roj prison camp in Syria, before speaking to her via WhatsApp and continuing to visit her.
The jihadist bride lost her bid today to overturn the government’s decision to revoke her British nationality for traveling to join ISIS at the age of 15.
Drury wrote in The viewer: ‘We have to stop saying that Shamima was some kind of teenage victim.
Andrew Drury, 56, a father of four, is a ‘dangerous tourist’ who knew Shamima Begum for two years.
Drury wrote in The Spectator: “We have to stop saying that Shamima was some kind of teenage victim.”
British jihadist wife Shamima Begum pictured with her week-old son Jerah (now deceased) at the Al Hawl camp for wives and children captured by ISIS in Kurdish Syria, in 2019
Kadiza Sultana (left), Shamima Begum (centre) and Amira Abase going through security at Gatwick airport as they began their journey to join Isis in 2015
‘Everyone is an individual, responsible to some degree for their own actions.
“She was certainly mature enough to go through airports and cross the Turkish-Syrian border.
‘This is not a silly child.’
Drury last saw Begum in June 2022 and has since wondered if she was trying to set him up during their time together.
He said that while he has “mixed feelings” about having his citizenship revoked, he was “shocked” by Isis’s girlfriend by saying that he is “over” the death of his children.
Drury last saw Begum in June 2022 and has since wondered if she was trying to set him up during their time together.
The jihadist bride lost her bid today to overturn the government’s decision to revoke her British nationality for traveling to join ISIS at the age of 15.
Drury also said she was looking forward to doing TV interviews and had a “tantrum” before filming before suddenly transforming into someone with “a confidence I didn’t expect”.
In the run-up to this morning’s court hearing, Ms Begum made numerous media appearances, including on a magazine cover, television interviews and a ten-part BBC podcast series.
She denied reports in the media that she had sewn suicide vests or had been part of ISIL. [ISIS’s] moral police and stated that her activities were limited to being a housewife and mother.
MI5’s low opinion of his advertising campaign was revealed today in Judge Jay’s copy of the judgment. “In September and November 2021, Ms Begum was interviewed by Good Morning Britain and Sky News,” he said.
“MI5’s assessment is that many of the comments Ms Begum made in her subsequent interviews were likely to have been self-serving and an attempt to gain favorable media coverage in the run-up to this appeal.”
Shamima Begum’s lawyers gave a statement outside the High Court’s Immigration and Asylum Division, Field House, on Wednesday.
The jihadi girlfriend featured on Good Morning Britain in an exclusive interview in September 2021
The jihadist bride was 15 when she and two other east London schoolgirls fled to join ISIS in February 2015, and Begum married a 23-year-old ISIS fighter ten days after arriving in Syria.
Her British citizenship was revoked on national security grounds by former Home Secretary Sajid Javid shortly after she was found, nine months pregnant, in a Syrian refugee camp in February 2019.
Ms Begum, now 23, brought a challenge against the Home Office in the Special Immigration Appeals Commission (SIAC), where her lawyers argued that she should be allowed to return to Britain on the grounds that she was ” victim of child sex trafficking.
However, the Home Office defended the decision saying the security services “continue to assess” that she poses a risk to the UK.
Judges today dismissed Ms Begum’s challenge, ruling that while there was a “credible suspicion” that she was trafficked to Syria for “sexual exploitation”, this was not sufficient for her appeal to succeed.
Judge Jay added that whether she posed a threat to national security was up to politicians, not the courts.
With Ms Begum’s lawyers vowing to appeal the ruling, a legal expert warned that the taxpayer would continue to receive a massive bill for legal aid costs.
Paul Fulcher, who runs specialist firm Legal Costs Experts, has predicted the case could end up costing taxpayers more than £5m if all legal costs are accounted for.
He told MailOnline today: ‘It’s going to continue. His lawyers have come out and have said that they will continue fighting. Ultimately, they get paid for winning, losing, or drawing.
‘The taxpayer has probably already paid millions and there are likely to be millions more.
‘KCs can charge £5,000 a day, although legal aid doesn’t usually pay those fees. Then there are the lawyers and a great team behind them too.
‘It’s going to keep piling up and piling up. It is a golden egg.
“Ultimately, at some point, someone has to stop it so the taxpayer doesn’t have to keep paying.”
The former schoolgirl from east London gave an interview to GB News last year.
Begum on Sky News in 2019, when she said about ISIS: “It was nice at first, like in the videos.”
Today’s sentence has been well received by the Government.
Home Secretary Suella Braverman said: ‘My priority is, and always will be, the security of the UK.
“I am pleased with the decision of the court today, which has agreed with the Government’s position on all the grounds of appeal.”
However, the decision drew the ire of Ms Begum’s legal team, with her lawyer, Gareth Peirce, calling it “an extraordinary sentence delivered in an extraordinary manner”.
Speaking outside Field House in central London, he added that the commission “is clearly concerned about the case it has to decide and the constraints placed on it by the Supreme Court.”
He continued: “The implication, the outcome, we are faced with is that no British child who has been trafficked out of the UK will be protected by the British state if the Home Secretary invokes national security.”
Daniel Furner, also part of Ms Begum’s legal team, said the case was “nowhere near over” and they would challenge the ruling.
He said: ‘In terms of the legal fight, that’s not over, we’re not going to go into detail about what exactly that means at this stage.
“What this judgment most demands, however, is some courage and some leadership on the part of the Home Secretary to look at this case again in the light of the clear and compelling factual findings that this court has made. We will challenge this decision.