Canada's intelligence officials would support an inquiry into their organization’s controversial role in the alleged smuggling of Shamima Begum, a British school girl into Syria.
Sources told Begum’s family lawyer, Tasnime Akunjee, that there is significant concern within its ranks that a human trafficker, who works for Canadian intelligence helped Begum and two of her friends from east London, to join the Islamic State in Syria, reports The Guardian.
However, till last week, sources within the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) had kept their counsel over the matter, since it was revealed that the Metropolitan police in London may have known that a human smuggler from CSIS was behind the trafficking.
The lawyer, Akunjee said: “I have spoken to individuals within the CSIS who are extremely concerned and shocked about its role in the trafficking of Shamima Begum and would strongly support an inquiry into its involvement.”
He later suggested that at the time of the alleged trafficking in 2015, Canadian intelligence officials had broken the service’s operating guidance.
“It is also worth noting that, at the time of her trafficking into Syria, CSIS did not have the legal authority to recruit and provide resources to someone engaged in supporting terrorism,” Akunjee told The Guardian.
The two other girls, who were also Begum’s friends – were smuggled into Syria by Mohammed al-Rashed – a double agent working for both IS and Canadian intelligence.
The then 16-year-old Kadiza Sultana is believed to have been killed in an air raid while Amira Abase, is still reportedly missing, The Guardian reported.
Last week’s revelations have led to renewed calls for the British government to look into the myriad safeguarding and public safety failures in the case,
Currently, the 23-year-old Begum is trapped in a camp in Syria, reports The Guardian.
She has claimed that she was trafficked into ISIS.
She is also appealing against the removal of her British citizenship in 2019.
In February 2015, Shamima, aged 15, left her home with two other teenagers, Kadiza Sultana, and Amira Abase, and travelled to Syria to join IS.
She was found, nine months pregnant, in a Syrian refugee camp in February 2019.
Dhaka has repeatedly said that Shamima has nothing to do with Bangladesh.
Neither is she a Bangladeshi citizen nor a dual citizen of the two countries; her father was once a Bangladeshi and then took British citizenship, Foreign Minister Dr AK Abdul Momen said in 2020.
But they never applied for dual nationality with Bangladesh, he added.
Photo: IS bride Shamima won't be allowed in Bangladesh, says govt | Dhaka Tribune
