(New Statesman) I met Tasnime Akunjee for the first time in autumn last year. I was interested in the case of the three girls from Bethnal Green Academy who in February 2015 joined Islamic State (IS) in Syria and, because he was the solicitor representing the girls’ families at the time of their disappearance, I wanted to discuss it with him.
Shamima Begum, Kadiza Sultana and Amira Abase were considered model students and were radicalised without their families’ knowledge. Akunjee, a criminal defence solicitor and expert on terrorism legislation, was approached by a friend at the East London Mosque, where he’d done pro bono work, and asked to represent the girls’ families. He accepted and was quickly drawn into a world of intrigue and danger, travelling to the Syrian-Turkish border as he negotiated to get one of the girls, Kadiza, out of Raqqa, the de facto capital of IS.
