ISIS widow Janai Safar denied bail; two others to seek release on Monday

Thirty-two-year-old ISIS widow Janai Safar was denied bail on Friday by a Sydney judge, who said her lawyers had not provided any information about whether she supports the organisation that waged terror against Muslims, Christians and others across the world a decade ago.

“This is a unique matter that’s rarely been tried in this country,” Judge Daniel Covington said.

Ms Safar, who has a nine-year-old son, now faces detention until charges of entering a prohibited area in Syria and being a member of a terrorist group are heard in court again.

In Melbourne, a lawyer for Kawsar Ahmad, 53, and her 31-year-old daughter, Zeinab Ahmad, told the Melbourne Magistrates’ Court they would seek bail on Monday after being arrested at Melbourne airport on Thursday evening.

During the 15-minute hearing, the court was packed with journalists, lawyers and supporters, who filled about one third of the public gallery, according to a 7News report.

Eight men refused to stand when the magistrate entered the court, the report said.

The elder Ms Ahmad appeared in court first wearing a light brown hijab, before the younger woman was led in wearing a black hijab.

They arrived on Thursday evening at Melbourne airport with about eight children and family members and were swamped by journalists and camera crews.

Police allege the pair travelled to Syria in 2014 with their families and have been under the control of Kurdish forces at the Al Roj camp in the country’s north since March, 2019, when the last of the ISIS forces were defeated.

They are accused of keeping a woman from the Yazidi minority group in northern Iraq as a slave.

“It will be alleged the woman travelled to Syria in 2014 with her husband and children, and was complicit in the purchase of a female slave for US$10,000 ($14,000), and knowingly kept the woman in the home,” the Australian Federal Police said.

The court was told federal law prevents the media from naming the alleged slave. Prosecutors planned to apply for a suppression order over the identity of a witness, another woman, on Friday afternoon.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said the government had resisted pressure from the US government to help the three women return to Australia.

“We chose to make our own decisions as a sovereign state and not to provide them with any support, because I have absolutely zero sympathy for these people,” he said at a press conference in Melbourne.

He expressed sympathy for their children, who he said were “victims of decisions that their parents have made”.

Opposition leader Angus Taylor accused the government of helping the families return by issuing them passports and failing to ban them from Australia using a legal process known as a Temporary Exclusion Order.

“They’ve done that by doing DNA tests, by issuing and distributing passports,” he said while campaigning for a by-election in southern NSW.

“They only imposed one temporary exclusion order. They could have done far more than that.”

The women and their children spent much of the last seven years in camps for foreign ISIS supporters in Syria created after the caliphate collapsed. Concerns the camps are hotbeds of Islamist extremism has triggered concerns they could be a security risk.

One of Ms Abbas’ daughters, Zahra Ahmad, was seen leaving Melbourne airport Thursday night and has not been arrested.

In Sydney, Lawyer Michael Ainsworth said it was unclear how closely Ms Safar was involved with ISIS and whether she was pressured to participate in the group’s activities.

He said the allegation that she entered a prohibited zone took place between nine and 12 years ago.

“March, 2017, is when she effectively leaves Raqqa, which mean’s she’s no longer in the declared zone and certainly no longer declared to be a participant of the organisation,” he told the court.

Judge Covington acknowledged the stress her incarceration would have on her son and noted there were no allegations she broke the law after 2017.

But she did not meet the exceptional circumstances needed to be granted bail despite the nine-year-old having never lived away from her, he said.

“The factors have some strength, on the other hand I can’t lose sight of . . . the serious nature of the charges,” he said.

Authorities have been following the women for over a decade after they travelled to the Middle East with their partners, who intended to fight for Islamic State. Advocates for the group say some were coerced or only went to the Middle East to keep their families together.

Hassan Ibrahim, who escaped Iraq after ISIS captured nine members of his family, said he and other members of the Yezidi community in Australia are “deeply concerned about the return of the women associated wit the terrorist movement”.

“These developments have caused significant fear, distress, and emotional trauma within the Yezidi community in Australia,” Mr Ibrahim told The Nightly from his home in Toowoomba.

“The community believes that the impact of these returns is not limited to Yezidi survivors alone, but also raises broader concerns relating to community safety, asocial cohesion, and the long-term effects of extremist ideology on (the) Australian society as a whole”.

The Australian Federation of Islamic Councils has previously said Australian citizens should not be left in indefinite detention in dangerous conditions overseas.