An Australian ISIS bride who was charged after she adopted her husband to Syria a decade in the past has escaped jail time.
Mariam Raad, 32, travelled to Islamic State-contolled Syria in 2014 to hitch her husband Muhammad Zahab, who was believed to have been a high-ranking member of ISIS.
It’s believed Zahab, a former maths trainer, was killed in 2018.
Raad returned to Australia in October 2022 and was arrested three months later following a joint investigation between Australian Federal Police and their NSW counterparts.
She was charged with getting into a area managed by a terrorist organisation, which she pleaded responsible to final month.
Sporting a pink head scarf and flanked by supporters, Raad appeared in Goulburn Native Courtroom within the NSW Southern Highlands for sentencing on Wednesday, the place she was discharged conditionally, ABC Information reported.
She obtained no conviction however should show good behaviour for the following 25 months.
Former ISIS bride, Mariam Raad (pictured outdoors Goulburn Courtroom on Wednesday) was discharged conditionally and should show good behaviour for the following 25-months
The mom was charged in 2023 for getting into a area managed by a terrorist organisation. Raad (pictured together with her deceased husband Muhammad Zahab) after she adopted her husband to ISIS-controlled Syria in 2014
Raad now lives in Younger within the NSW Riverina area within the state’s south.
Her lawyer Rose Khalilizadeh instructed the courtroom throughout closing arguments that on the time of the offending, her consumer was a ‘weak lady in a relationship of coercive management’ who was ‘conditioned to not query her husband’s resolution making’.
The courtroom heard that Raad had married her husband when she was 18 and was nonetheless in school – ‘simply as she emerged from childhood’.
Ms Khalilizadeh agreed that her consumer selected to stay in Syria however mentioned that Raad was remoted out of the country with younger youngsters.
She added that it could not be confirmed that Raad ‘independently wished or desired to stay in Syria’.
Crown prosecutor Sam Duggan disputed Raad’s model of how a lot information the spouse had of her husband’s actions.
he instructed the courtroom that Raad despatched textual content messages to relations whereas in Syria, saying she would ‘by no means go away’ and that she ‘can not go away the land of the caliphate’.
Mr Duggan mentioned the messages, in addition to her two makes an attempt to enter Syria, confirmed that Raad held views beneficial to ISIS.
Her lawyer instructed the courtroom {that a} psychologist’s report discovered Raad was ‘probably experiencing … signs of advanced PTSD’ through the time of her offending, which affected her resolution making capabilities.
Ms Khalilizadeh mentioned Raad’s time in a Syrian camp had uncovered her to ‘degrading and inhumane situations’, saying she had been ‘basically incarcerated for years’ and Mr Duggan didn’t dispute this.
Raad lives in a household compound (pictured) on the outskirts of Younger in NSW’s Riverina area
Justice of the Peace Geraldine Beattie accepted ‘the extent of management and affect her husband had over her’.
Ms Beattie mentioned Raad was alone in Syria, ‘a feminine particular person in a warfare zone’ which ‘raises the query: if she wished to go away, may she have left?’.
The Justice of the Peace added that the mom had ‘superb prospects of rehabilitation’ and ‘has demonstrated her contrition’.
Raad was one in every of 4 Australian girls and 13 youngsters who returned to Sydney from the Syrian Roj camp in October 2022.
All 4 girls had been married to ISIS fighters who both died or are in jail.
In 2021, Raad spoke to the ABC from the infamous Syrian camp, saying she was compelled to journey to Syria and did not know something about her husband’s actions.
‘I did not know my husband was a senior within the Islamic State, and I did not even know something about my husband’s work,’ she mentioned.
Raad was one in every of 4 individuals so far charged with getting into a declared space.
Two different instances had been nonetheless earlier than the courts whereas the fourth had been withdrawn, an AFP spokesperson mentioned.
