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William Ton
An Australian woman accused of travelling to Islamic State-controlled Syria and being a member of the terror group has been granted bail in Melbourne.
Mother-of-four Rayann El Houli was charged in May with travelling to a declared conflict zone and joining Islamic State.
In granting the 34-year-old bail on Monday, Magistrate Brett Sonnet accepted a combination of factors including the historical nature of her alleged offending, her role as primary caregiver, and health conditions that include post-traumatic stress disorder and potential multiple sclerosis.
Sonnet also pointed to El Houli’s lack of prior offending, her having a stable support network and having lived within the community for eight months without incident, and her co-operation with authorities.
“In my view, the risk of reoffending is relatively low,” the magistrate said.
The so-called ISIS bride allegedly travelled to Syria with a former husband and two of her children in 2014 to live under IS rule, Melbourne Magistrates’ Court heard.
Two of El Houli’s children were born in Syria, and her first and second husbands – who were both IS members – were killed. She is divorced from her third husband.
Following the fall of Islamic State in 2019, the mother and her children were detained by Syrian forces and held at al-Hawl detention camp until September last year, when they returned to Australia.
The court heard on Monday that the family had been living in the Melbourne community for eight months before El Houli was charged with terrorism offences and taken into custody.
Australian Federal Police officer Paul Sherlock alleged last week that she had recorded herself showing extremist material to her young children and encouraged them to act like IS fighters.
Videos filmed in the home where El Houli lived after her divorce, and sent to family in Australia, show guns and other weapons inside the house, the lead investigator said.
Detectives also alleged El Houli attempted to persuade other family and friends to travel to Syria in text messages, including talking about the perks foreign IS members received from the regime.
Prosecutor Andrew Sprague opposed bail, citing an unacceptable risk to the safety of the community.
Despite El Houli having not participated in a de-radicalisation program since her return, defence barrister Peter Morrissey, SC, told the court his client had renounced the terrorist organisation, having told an earlier hearing she wanted “nothing to do with it – not now, not in the future”.
Morrisey said the accused had been juggling a stressful life focusing on caring for her children since the family’s return to Australia, and described her activities in Syria from 2018 as “very old”, and those of a “naive young woman who drank the Kool-Aid”.
Her sole focus now, the court was told, was on being a good parent and ensuring her children were educated.
AAP
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