In a surprising development in an Australian human trafficking and slavery case, a mother-daughter pair facing multiple slavery and crimes against humanity charges have withdrawn their immediate push for bail, just days after their arrest on arrival back in Australia from a Syrian refugee camp.
Fifty-four-year-old Kawsar Ahmad and her 31-year-old daughter Zeinab Ahmad appeared before Melbourne Magistrates Court on Monday afternoon, four days after federal officers took them into custody at Melbourne Airport last Thursday. The two Australian citizens are among 13 people – four women and nine children – repatriated to Australia from the Al Roj camp in northern Syria, where they had been held by Kurdish forces since March 2019. The camp holds relatives of people alleged to be affiliated with the ISIS terror group.
Court documents detail that the pair traveled to Syria originally in 2014. Prosecutors allege that in June 2017, Kawsar Ahmad aided in the purchase of a 20-something-year-old Yazidi woman for $10,000 USD. Between that purchase and November 2018, both women allegedly held the victim in their home in Syria’s Deir ez-Zor province, exercising full ownership over her in conditions that meet legal definitions of slavery.
Kawsar Ahmad, who also goes by the name Kawsar Abbas, faces four separate counts covering enslavement, holding a person as a slave, exploiting a slave, and participating in slave trading – all classified as crimes against humanity under Australian law. Zeinab Ahmad, alternatively listed as Zeinab Ahmed, faces two counts of enslavement and exploitation of a slave. Arrest warrants for the two women were first issued back on February 17 this year, after authorities confirmed they planned to return to Australia after years detained overseas.
The charges outline that the alleged conduct was carried out knowingly as part of a systematic, widespread attack targeting the civilian population in the war-torn region. Prior to Monday’s hearing, court observers had confirmed the pair’s legal team was preparing immediate bail applications to secure their release ahead of trial. But in a sudden shift, Chief Magistrate Lisa Hannan told the court the defendants had withdrawn their immediate applications, instead requesting that bail hearings be scheduled at a later date next month.
After a short adjournment, Hannan set Zeinab Ahmad’s bail hearing for June 5, and Kawsar Ahmad’s for June 16. The two defendants were supported in court by Kawsar Ahmad’s brother, Abraham Abbas, who attended in a show of family support. The repatriation of the group from Syria already sparked unrest last week, when supporters of the returning group clashed with journalists covering the arrival at Melbourne Airport.
Under Australian law, the media is prohibited from publicly naming the Yazidi woman who is the alleged primary victim in the case. Hannan has also issued an interim suppression order blocking the identification of a second woman who will serve as a witness for the prosecution in the trial. Prosecutors confirmed on Monday that they would file an application to have this second witness designated a “special witness” under Australia’s criminal procedure rules, which would extend the lifetime ban on any publication that could reveal her identity. The witness is alleged to have also been a victim of slavery-related offenses separate from the charges against Ahmad and her daughter, but will give testimony covering her interactions with the two accused. A preliminary hearing on the special witness designation is scheduled to take place in the same court on Tuesday.