MELBOURNE ISIS BRIDE WINS SH0CK BID FOR FREEDOM JUST DAYS AFTER HER DAUGHTER WAS DENIED RELEASE – FAMILY’S DRAMATIC LEGAL TWIST SPARKS FRESH DEBATE
An accused ISIS bride will walk from court after winning her bid for freedom.
Kawsar Abbas, 54, looked relieved and her supporters gasped as Chief Magistrate Lisa Hannan granted her bail in Melbourne Magistrates Court on Friday afternoon.
It comes a week after her daughter Zeinab Ahmad, 31, lost her bid for bail in the same court.
The two women were charged in May with slavery offences after they both returned to Australia with other family members of former Islamic State fighters.
Prosecutors allege Abbas migrated to Syria with her husband, Mohammad Ahmad, and their children to join ISIS around January 2015.
It is alleged that while in Syria in 2017, Mohammad Ahmad bought a teenage girl, whom he allegedly held as a slave and repeatedly raped and assaulted.
Abbas allegedly agreed to the purchase and treated the girl badly, often threatening her with beatings although she never assaulted the girl herself.
In opposing bail, Detective Senior Constable Marc Clendenning told the court Abbas was a risk to the community and there were concerns she would spread extremist ideology if released.
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Kawsar Abbas, 54, faces charges of enslavement, possessing a slave, using a slave and engaging in slave trading but has been freed on bail
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It comes a week after her daughter Zeinab Ahmad, 31, lost her bid for bail in the same court
Ahmad’s defence barrister, Peter Morrissey SC, had argued his client did not support ISIS and that strict bail conditions, including a ban on attending mosques, would reduce any alleged risk.
The court heard Abbas had instructed her legal team to commence divorce proceedings against her husband, Muhammad Ahmad, who is now in a Syrian prison.
The court had previously heard Ahmad was a brutal slave driver who routinely assaulted the family slave, punching and dragging her down two flights of stairs by her hair on one occasion.
‘I bought you for sex and housework,’ he told the alleged slave.
On Monday, Mr Morrissey told the court his client now wanted nothing to do with him.
‘My instructor has written instructions now to commence divorce proceedings against Muhammad,’ he said.
‘Those were in writing … last week. In the civil courts, under the Family Law Act here.’
Mr Morrissey told the court his client hoped to live a ‘small scale and peaceful existence’ in the community.
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Ahmad’s defence barrister, Peter Morrissey SC, leaves court after an earlier hearing
He further submitted Abbas had pledged to stay away from local mosques as part of any bail conditions.
Mr Morrissey said Preston Mosque had advised it would not allow Abbas in if she were bailed with a condition forbidding her from mosques.
‘She’ll keep away,’ he said.
‘She’s happy to have it made a condition of the bail.’
The court heard Abbas suffered from a series of mental health complications, including post-traumatic stress and anxiety attacks.
On Monday, Abbas delayed proceedings after suffering such an attack, the court heard.
A forensic doctor later told the court Abbas now found it difficult to find joy, but hoped being released to live with her family might help the situation.
Chief Magistrate Hannan found the risk was low enough that stringent bail conditions could adequately protect the community, and granted Abbas bail.
‘In my view even a low risk of terrorism would likely be unacceptable. But having regard to all matters put and in particular the evidence of Dr Davis, while risk can never be entirely eliminated, on the evidence before me the risk is so low that with stringent bail conditions it can be made acceptable,’ she said.
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Abbas’ daughter Zeinab Ahmad (pictured) lost her bid for bail in the same court.
‘The applicant told Dr Davis and made a statement through her counsel, that she renounces both IS and all violent extremism.
‘The question is whether this is persuasive evidence. I note that in this regard I have already indicated that her words alone would not carry sufficient weight for me to act upon, but combined with the evidence of Dr Davis it carries more weight, given he has assessed her current beliefs and the future risk of her acting upon any radical views she may have held in the years she was in Syria.’
Abbas will walk from Melbourne Magistrates Court later on Friday.
SOURCE: https://www.dailymail.com/news/article-15931571/kawsar-ahmad-isis-bride-bail-granted-melbourne-court.html
