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A woman allegedly bought to be a slave for an Australian family told police she was repeatedly beaten, raped and traded among ISIS fighters, a court has been told.

Details of the woman’s allegations were aired in the Melbourne Magistrates Court on Thursday afternoon as Zeinab Ahmad, 31, seeks bail to be released back into the community.

Ms Ahmad and her mother Kawsar Ahmad, 54, were arrested and charged with slavery offences after arriving at Melbourne airport on May 7 after leaving a camp in Syria where they had been detailed since 2019.

The pair are accused of possessing a Yazidi teenager as a slave between about June 2017 and November 2018 in areas of Syria then controlled by Islamic State.

Called to give evidence, Australian Federal Police detective senior constable Marc Clendenning said police had interviewed the alleged victim overseas.

He told the court the woman, who cannot be named, said she’d been captured by Islamic State from her village in Northern Iraq aged 15, before being taken to Mosul and sold as a sabaya — a sex slave.

She was allegedly traded between about 17 different Islamic State members before being freed by Kurdish forces in 2019.

Constable Clendenning said the woman alleged being bought by Mohammed Ahmad, Kawsar’s husband and Zeinab’s father, for $US10,000 around Ramadan 2017 and living with the family for about one year and four months before she was again sold.

The federal officer said she was told she was bought “for sex and to do housework”.

It’s alleged the woman was repeatedly beaten by Mohammed Ahmad, who remains in detention in Iraq, sexually assaulted “many times” and forced to do housework.

The woman allegedly told police Kawsar “treated her badly often threatening her with beatings or being sold” and Zeinab “treated her very badly”.

“The accused (Zeinab Ahmad) was in charge of everything when her parents were not in the house, she was like a deputy,” Constable Clendenning said.

Police believe family used charitable donations to move to Syria

Constable 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 Dawod Elmir, 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”.

The officer said Mohammed Ahmad established a Melbourne-based charity called Global Humanitarian Aid in 2013, which claimed to be working to address a humanitarian crisis affecting Syrian refugees.

But he said, police suspect the family used funds from the charity “to facilitate travel and entry into Syria”.

Ms Ahmad is facing two charges of enslavement and using a slave, 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”.

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 will continue on Friday.

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