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Shamima Begum granted aid to challenge citizenship revoke

Shamima Begum has been granted legal aid by the Legal Aid Agency to fight the decision to revoke her UK citizenship.

Begum left east London in 2015 to join the Islamic State group and was stripped of her citizenship in February, after she was found in a Syrian refugee camp.

Legal aid is financial assistance for those unable to afford legal representation themselves and is covered by tax money.

Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt said: "On a personal level, it makes me very uncomfortable because she made a series of choices and she knew the choices she was making, so I think we made decisions about her future based on those choices.

"However, we are a country that believes that people with limited means should have access to the resources of the state if they want to challenge the decisions the state has made about them and, for obvious reasons, those decisions are made independent from politicians."

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