Australian police on Friday charged two women linked to the Islamic State extremist group with slavery offences after they returned from Syria, where they had been detained in a refugee camp for more than seven years.
The women, Kawsar Ahmad, 54, and her daughter Zeinab Ahmad, 31, face crimes against humanity charges including owning and using a slave in Syria, which carry a maximum penalty of 25 years in prison, police said.
The pair, among a group of four women and nine children who returned to Australia from Syria on Thursday, were arrested at Melbourne airport.
“This remains an active investigation into very serious allegations,” Australian Federal Police Assistant Commissioner Counter Terrorism Stephen Nutt said in a statement.
The two women travelled to Syria in 2014 with their families and allegedly kept a female slave at their home, police said. They faced court on Friday and will remain in custody until their next hearings on Monday, the Magistrate’s Court of Victoria said.
Separately, 32-year-old woman Janai Safar was arrested at Sydney airport on Thursday and charged with terror-related offences, including allegedly joining Islamic State. The charges carry a maximum jail term of 10 years.
Safar was refused bail by a Sydney court on Friday and will stay behind bars until her next hearing on July 15, court records showed.
Safar travelled to Syria in 2015 to join her husband, who had previously left Australia and joined ISIS, according to police.
The government said earlier this week that the group of 13 women and children planned to return to Australia from Syrian camps without official assistance.
AUTHORITIES WILL ‘THROW THE BOOK’ AT THEM
The arrival of the women and children put pressure on Australia’s centre-left government with critics blaming the government for not doing enough to prevent their travel home. But the government said there were “very serious limits” on what authorities could do to prevent Australian citizens re-entering the country.
“Australian citizens are entitled to Australian passports. They’re entitled to come into Australia,” Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said on a radio interview with Nova Melbourne.
“What we’re entitled to do though is to throw the book at them and that’s precisely what we’re doing.”
Three of the four women who returned faced serious charges, and the other will be monitored, Albanese added.
He later told reporters at a press conference he had sympathy for their children, who were “victims of decisions that their parents have made”.
“It is appropriate that they undergo support,” he said.
Following ISIS’s territorial defeat, many relatives of suspected fighters were detained in Syrian camps.
In January, the United States began moving detained ISIS members out of Syria after the collapse of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, which had been guarding around a dozen facilities holding fighters and affiliated civilians, including foreigners.
The Australian government repatriated four women and 13 children from Syrian camps in 2022. About 21 Australians remain in al-Roj camp, the Australian Broadcasting Corp reported.
(REUTERS)
