Zeinab Ahmad: ISIS-linked woman seeks bail on slavery charges after returning from Syrian camp

The husband of an ISIS-linked woman accused of slavery offences is believed to have been killed less than two years after moving to Syria, a court has been told.

New details about the alleged involvement of Zeinab Ahmad, 31, in the so-called Islamic State have been aired in the Melbourne Magistrates Court on Thursday as she applies for bail.

Called to give evidence, Australian Federal Police detective senior constable Marc Clendenning said the AFP began an investigation into the “offshore activities of the Ahmad family” in November 2017.

He told the court it was alleged family members, including Ms Ahmad’s husband, parents, brothers and sisters and their partners, and a several children began departing Melbourne in May 2013, claiming on outgoing passenger cards they were planning to spend time in Turkiye.

Around January 2015, he said, the group settled in Syria as one family unit.

Two of Ms Ahmad’s brothers are believed to have been killed in 2016 and 2017 and her husband is believed to have been killed in May 2016, constable Clendenning said.

Providing context for the Islamic State’s activities in Iraq and Syria, the federal officer said the caliphate was announced in June 2014 before the group launched a “co-ordinated attack” in northern Iraq where they targeted members of the Yazidi ethno-religious minority group in August 2014.

Constable Clendenning said about 6800 Yazidi women and children were captured by Islamic State with “many remaining missing and unaccounted for to this day”.

He told the court Islamic State endorsed the rape, killing and enslavement of the Yazidis, maintaining a “detailed inventory of Yazidi slaves”.

Ms Ahmad is facing two charges of enslavement and using a slave, relating to a Yazidi woman, allegedly used as a slave in the family’s home in the Deir ez-Zur province of Syria between June 2017 and November 2018.

It is alleged the slavery offence was committed “in circumstances where the conduct was committed intentionally or knowingly as part of a widespread or systemic attack directed against” the Yazidi community.

Prosecutors have opposed the bail application, arguing Ms Ahmad poses an unacceptable risk to the safety and welfare of any persons.

They allege she has made statements “supporting or advocating support for terrorist acts”.

Ms Ahmad was arrested alongside her mother Kawsar Ahmad, 54, also known as Kawsar Abbas, on May 7 after touching down at Melbourne Airport as part of a cohort of women and children returning from a refugee camp for ISIS-linked families in northern Syria.

Kawsar Ahmad has been charged with four crimes against humanity offences of enslavement, possessing a slave, using a slave and engaging in slave trading.

She is expected to apply for bail during a two-day hearing on June 16.

The Australian Federal Police allege the two women travelled to Syria in 2014 and were detained by Kurdish forces at the Al Roj camp between 2019 and this year.

It’s alleged Kawsar Ahmad was “complicit” in the purchase of a female slave for $US10,000 in about June 2017, with the mother and daughter exercising control over the woman until about November 2018.

The hearing continues.