{"id":717572,"date":"2026-06-05T20:03:17","date_gmt":"2026-06-05T20:03:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/717572\/"},"modified":"2026-06-05T20:03:17","modified_gmt":"2026-06-05T20:03:17","slug":"court-hears-syria-returnee-zeinab-ahmad-has-not-renounced-islamic-state-group","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/717572\/","title":{"rendered":"Court hears Syria returnee Zeinab Ahmad has not renounced Islamic State group"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">Police officers have told a court a woman that allegedly joined the Islamic State group (IS) and owned a Yazidi slave while in Syria could not be forced to wear an ankle monitoring bracelet as part of any bail conditions.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">Zeinab Ahmad, 31, is seeking bail after she was charged with slavery offences after allegedly crossing into Syria with her family to support IS in 2015.<\/p>\n<p>Sexual assault\u00a0support lines:<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">In 2017, her father, Mohammad Ahmad, purchased Yazidi teenager for $US10,000 ($14,000), to be forced into sexual servitude and completing house duties, the court heard.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">While the court heard he sexually and physically assaulted the girl multiple times, Detective Senior Constable Marc Clendenning said Ms Ahmad, then aged 22 and 23, did not &#8220;physically hurt&#8221; the teenager, but did treat her &#8220;badly&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">The girl was on-sold more than a year later.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">The Australian Federal Police have argued Ms Ahmad would pose an unacceptable risk if she was released on bail.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">Ms Ahmad&#8217;s uncle, Abraham Abbas, also addressed the bail hearing, stating he would provide the accused &#8220;somewhere to stay, comfort and support&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Abraham Abbas pictured outside Melbourne Magistrates' Court\" class=\"Image_image__5tFYM ContentImage_image__DQ_cq\"  src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/ddda2291e367e7803954f48072b7cd7f.jpeg\" loading=\"lazy\" data-component=\"Image\" data-lazy=\"true\"\/><\/p>\n<p class=\"Typography_base__sj2RP FigureCaption_text__zDxQ5 Typography_sizeMobile12__w_FPC Typography_lineHeightMobile20___U7Vr Typography_regular__WeIG6 Typography_colourInherit__dfnUx\" data-component=\"Typography\">Zeinab Ahmad&#8217;s uncle, Abraham Abbas, has described Islamic State as &#8220;evil&#8221;. (ABC News: James Oaten)<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">He explained Ms Abbas would live downstairs of his home with her daughter, and offered $75,000 and his home as surety.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">When questioned about his views on Islamic State he told the court, &#8220;I hate those bastards&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">&#8220;Sorry your honour, sorry for the language. They&#8217;re evil and they don&#8217;t represent anything we&#8217;ve got to do with Islam at all.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">Defence lawyer Grace Morgan outlined her client would not contest any application for a control order, which can force a person to wear an electronic monitoring bracelet.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">But Senior Constable Clendenning told the court such an order can only be applied after a conviction, and it was not something the Magistrate&#8217;s Court could enforce if bail was granted.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">&#8220;It&#8217;s not a tool in bail conditions,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">Victoria Police Detective Sergeant Matthew Archer, who has helped the investigation for over three years, agreed.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">&#8220;The control order cannot be put in place because the charges are before the court,&#8221; he told the court.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">The court heard Ms Ahmad also agreed to participate in countering violent extremism (CVE) programs, administered by Victoria Police and the Board of Imams Victoria.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">But Senior Constable Clendenning said such programs were intended for people on a &#8220;path of radicalisation&#8221;, but Ms Ahmad was beyond that point.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">He said Ms Ahmad had not renounced support for Islamic State.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;No conditions of that nature would ameliorate the risk because there&#8217;s a lot of unknowns with the accused&#8217;s ideology,&#8221;  he said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">Detective Sergeant Archer also said CVE could not be &#8220;cherry picked&#8221;, and was not available for someone charged under Ms Ahmad&#8217;s circumstances.<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;Association with Islamic State linked networks&#8217;<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">On the first day of the bail hearing, a federal police statement of facts read to the court outlined the Ahmad&#8217;s family movements into Syria.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">It&#8217;s alleged Zeinab Ahmad&#8217;s father, Mohammad Zeinab, arrived in Turkiye in 2013, before his family, including the accused, joined him the year later, before crossing into Syria.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">Mohammad and his wife Kawsar Ahmad accepted donations via a social media page purporting to be a charity, called Global Humanitarian Aid, which police suspect was used to pay for the family to travel into Syria.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">During their time in Syria, the court heard social media posts show the family were together in territory controlled by Islamic State.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">Zeinab Ahmad made multiple social media posts supporting Islamic State, she carried an Islamic State identification card, and earned an income from the group, the court heard.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">In 2015, Ms Ahmad posted her husband, Dawod, had made a decision to &#8220;Hijrah to the land of Khilafah&#8221;, which means to migrate and join the Islamic State caliphate, the court heard.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">&#8220;The actions my husband made, and which I had to follow, have nothing, absolutely nothing to do with my parents or myself,&#8221; her account posted.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">It&#8217;s believed Dawod was killed in 2016, and Ms Ahmad was subsequently married to two other Australian men during her time in Syria.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">The Australian Federal Police statement of facts state she is currently married to a member of Islamic State, which shows &#8220;her proximity to, and association with Islamic State linked networks&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">The court heard all women, including the accused, had severe restrictions placed upon their &#8220;liberties&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">The court also heard details about how Islamic State trafficked Yazidi women and children, an ethnic minority that live in Syria, Iraq and Turkiye.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">Some 6,800 women and children were captured by IS, to be sold in markets to serve men for sex and household duties.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">Many remain unaccounted-for.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Police officers have told a court a woman that allegedly joined the Islamic State group (IS) and owned&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":715177,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,62963,32723,44,66180,41,39,42,40,348081],"class_list":["post-717572","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-isis","tag-islamic-state","tag-news","tag-syria","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-zehinab-ahmad"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/717572","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=717572"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/717572\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/715177"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=717572"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=717572"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=717572"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}