An Australian mother and daughter facing historic slavery charges related to their time living in Syria have been placed in the same maximum-security women’s prison that holds convicted triple murderer Erin Patterson, as they prepare to make separate bail applications in the coming weeks.
Fifty-four-year-old Kawsar Ahmad and 31-year-old Zeinab Ahmad were taken into Australian federal police custody at Melbourne’s Tullamarine Airport on Thursday evening, after seven years living in a camp for families with alleged ties to the Islamic State in northern Syria. The pair had been detained by Kurdish forces at the Al Roj camp since March 2019, following their initial travel to Syria in 2014, per Australian Federal Police allegations.
The two women are facing charges connected to the alleged enslavement of a Yazidi woman, a member of the ethno-religious minority group native to northern Iraq, between 2017 and 2018 at the family’s residence in Syria’s Deir ez-Zur province. Court documents allege Kawsar Ahmad aided in the purchase of the female victim for $10,000 USD in June 2017, and that both women exerted complete coercive control over the woman in conditions matching the legal definition of slavery until November 2018.
Kawsar Ahmad, also known by the alias Kawsar Abbas, faces four counts of crimes against humanity: enslavement, possessing a slave, using a slave, and engaging in slave trading. Her daughter Zeinab, who also uses the surname variant Ahmed, faces two charges: enslavement and using a slave. Australian law mandates that the alleged victim cannot be publicly identified by media outlets. On Tuesday, the court granted a request to designate a second unnamed woman as a special witness, another designation that protects her identity from public disclosure. Prosecutors told the court this second individual, who is also an alleged victim of slavery-linked offenses unconnected to the current charges against the Ahmads, will provide testimony related to her interactions with the two accused. Chief Magistrate Lisa Hannan ruled the special witness designation was justified to protect the woman from additional distress and emotional trauma tied to the nature of her evidence.
The pair made their first court appearance via video link on Tuesday morning from the Dame Phyllis Frost Centre, a maximum-security women’s correctional facility in Melbourne. The same prison currently houses Erin Patterson, who is serving a life sentence for poisoning three members of her family to death with a toxic beef wellington, and attempting to murder a fourth. In a notable procedural overlap, Kawsar Ahmad is represented by Bill Doogue, the same solicitor who represented Patterson during her murder trial and is currently handling her upcoming appeal against conviction. The two accused are being held in separate custody units at the facility ahead of their bail hearings, scheduled for next month. Zeinab Ahmad will make her bail bid on June 5, with her mother’s application to follow on June 16.