Australian girl charged over journey to Syria to hitch Islamic State : NPR

MELBOURNE, Australia — An Australian mom of 4 was held in custody after she appeared in a court docket on Thursday charged with touring to Syria and becoming a member of the Islamic State group.

Rayann El Houli, 34, was arrested at her Melbourne residence eight months after she returned to Australia through Lebanon together with her kids and one other girl, police and her lawyer stated.

The arrest got here two days after seven ladies and 12 kids linked to IS returned to Australia from a Syrian refugee camp in opposition to the needs of the Australian authorities.

Three weeks in the past, 4 ladies and 9 kids in related circumstances returned from the identical Roj camp for displaced folks, which is positioned close to the world the place the frontiers of Syria, Turkey and Iraq converge.

Three of the 4 ladies have been charged on arrival with slavery and terrorism offenses and stay in custody.

All the ladies who returned from Syria this month remained below police investigation. Another girl, who accompanied El Houli to Australia from Lebanon, additionally was below investigation, Australia Federal Police Deputy Commissioner Hilda Sirec stated.

A time frame passing with out expenses does point out investigations have ceased, Sirec famous.

El Houli wore a black niqab when she appeared within the Melbourne Magistrates’ Court flanked by two jail officers. She was charged with coming into and remaining in a declared battle zone. She additionally has been charged with becoming a member of a terrorist group, IS. Each cost carries a possible most sentence of 10 years in jail.

Her bail utility will probably be heard on Monday. Her lawyer Peter Morrissey informed Magistrate Lisa Hannan that it was a precedence to return El Houli, who suffers from PTSD, to her kids.

“The children are doing well in school, in (sports) programs, doing everything as best they can,” Morrissey stated.

“They, too, have come from the camps and that’s the reason for the haste,” he added.

Police allege El Houli traveled to Syria between 2013 and 2014 to hitch IS. She was captured together with her household by Kurdish forces in March 2019 after IS fighters have been defeated and was positioned in al-Hol camp for displaced folks.

She returned to Australia on Sept. 26, police allege.

Janai Safar, 32, of Sydney was charged with related offenses when she arrived in Australia together with her 9-year-old son on May 7. She should spend at the least two months in a Sydney jail after a Justice of the Peace refused her utility to be launched on bail.

Police allege she adopted her IS-fighter associate to Syria in 2015 and had a baby there. The associate reportedly died in 2017. Australia made it unlawful for its residents to journey to the previous Syrian IS stronghold of Raqqa and not using a legit purpose from 2014 to 2017.

Kawsar Ahmed, also referred to as Kawsar Abbas, and her daughter Zeinab Ahmed, 31, have been charged in a Melbourne court docket on May 8 in relation to allegations that their household purchased a feminine Yazidi slave for $10,000 in Syria, police stated.

The daughter is scheduled to use for bail subsequent week and the mom has a bail listening to scheduled for June 16.