The British taxpayer has reportedly paid for a prosthetic arm and a £500,000 council house for a jihadi bride who returned to the UK after joining the Islamic State in Syria.
Samia Hussein, 27, who returned to the United Kingdom in February of last year after the so-called caliphate was destroyed, has been living free in Britain, reportedly with expenses paid by the British taxpayer.
While she was arrested upon her return from Syria, she has not been charged with any offence. The Metropolitan Police said that Hussein remains “under investigation”. However, the Mail on Sunday reported that she is moving freely without any ankle monitor tag, meaning that her movements are likely not being tracked by authorities.
A relative of the former ISIS bride told the newspaper that Hussein, who lost her arm during an allied attack on a weapons cache in the Syrian city of Raqqa, has been fitted with a new £3,000 prosthetic limb at the expense of the National Health Service (NHS).
The investigation also found that Hussein is currently living in a council house in West London with members of her family, which would otherwise go for between £500,000 and £600,000 on the open market.
The unnamed relative cited in the report went on to claim that Hussein was brought back to the UK by the British government, saying: “She got brainwashed anyway, and they found a way to bring her back. Actually, the British Government brought her back.”
Hussien has also been receiving “Government education classes”, believed to be from the deradicalisation Prevent programme.
“The Government is involved anyway. So she’s got classes that she signs with them. So they are involved because she was very young when she was taken [to Syria],” her relative said.
Responding to the report, Tory MP Tom Hunt said: “If you went to Syria to join IS, which was and is an avowed enemy of this country, then you have abdicated your British citizenship. You should not be allowed to come back, let alone be put in a council house and given expensive treatments on the NHS.”
Conservative MP Andrew Bridgen added: “I just hope this woman has been thoroughly assessed and she does not pose a threat to national security or her neighbours.”
The revelation comes as the High Court ruled on Friday that the government had unlawfully stripped the citizenship of a grandmother after it was determined that she and her daughters were members of the Islamic State after they had gone to Syria to join the terror group.
The ruling claimed that the Home Office had acted unlawfully because they failed to inform the ISIS bride mother that they were removing her citizenship.
Concerns have been raised that the ruling will pave the way for more jihadi brides to return to the UK, with sources telling The Times that at least 28 suspected jihadists could challenge their removals under the precedent set by the court.
Former cabinet minister David Davis said: “This chaotic outcome demonstrates that we need to revisit this policy so these people are treated with justice, but people liable for crimes are dealt with under British law.”
A Home Office spokesman said: “The government will always take the strongest possible action to protect our national security and the priority remains the safety of our citizens. We are carefully considering the implications of this ruling, including an application to appeal.”
It is believed that over 900 British citizens joined ISIS and other Islamist terror groups, around 100 of whom had their citizenship removed by the government. Some 50 British-born women and children, referred to as ISIS “brides” and “cubs”, are thought to be currently interned in camps across the Middle East.
The most infamous ISIS bride, Shamima Begum, who left the UK at the age of 15 in 2015 to marry a Dutch jihadist in Syria, has so far been prevented by the government from returning to the UK and remains in the al-Roj camp in Syria.
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