Rayann El Houli, part of the “ISIS Brides” group of Australian women, renounced the Islamic State and “violent jihad” her lawyer claimed during a Monday court appearance.
El Houli, a 34 year-old mother of four children, is one of the Australian “ISIS Brides” women that moved to Syria so they could marry Islamic State fighters before the collapse of the so-called ISIS “caliphate” in 2019. She reportedly returned to Australia with her sister in September. She was arrested months later on Thursday and formally charged with travelling to a declared conflict zone and joining the Islamic State terrorist organization. Both offences carry maximum penalties of up to ten years in prison.
The Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) reports that El Houli appeared before the Melbourne Magistrates Court on Monday to apply for bail, but the application was adjourned to give the defense time to organize expert witnesses to testify before the court. She wore a blue hijab, which, according to her lawyer, Senior Counsel Peter Morrissey, is an “act of good faith” so that she could be recognizable to the people in the courtroom. ABC noted that El Houli was wearing a niqab that covered all but her eyes at the time of her arrest last week.
Morrissey reportedly presented El Houli as a “highly traumatized individual” who wanted it known that she did not support the Islamic State. He further claimed that her client has “renounced ISIS and violent jihad,” and “wants nothin to do with it.”
“Not now, not in the future, not directly, not indirectly. Not for herself, not for the people she loves and specifically not for her children,” Morrissey stressed.
Australian prosecutors allege that El Houli traveled to Syria to join the Islamic State at some point between 2013 and 2014, marrying several members of the terrorist organization during her stay in the country. Chief Magistrate Lisa Hannan, citing the prosecutors’ statements, detailed that she has allegedly expressed support for terrorist acts and views of “killing nonbelievers” in the past, as well as seeking to indoctrinate her children to radical Islam.
Per ABC, it is believed that El Houli’s efforts to return to Australia were carried out independent of other efforts to repatriate Australian citizens from displaced camps following the fall of the ISIS “caliphate.” Australian Police officers have reportedly stated that El Houli was detained by Kurdish forces in March 2019 and held with her family in the al-Hawl camp in northern Syria. According to ABC, El Houli presumptively escaped the camp with her sister and children, and paid a smuggler to get them into Lebanon.
Magistrate Hannan, emphasizing that the charges against El Hoili are “very serious,” said she would need to weigh up risks to the community when deciding whether to grant bail. She also expressed that she would like to hear evidence on the circumstances of her escape from the Kurdish camp, and the accused woman’s lack of participation in anti-terrorism programs.
Morrissey reportedly argued that El Houli was “willing to undertake the programs” but that her “potential diagnosis of multiple sclerosis” has hindered her efforts.
In recent weeks, some of the women and their children have returned to Australia, where they now face a list of crimes against humanity charges ranging from terrorism, enslavement, to slave trading. Appearing before a Senate hearing last week, Australian Federal Police Commissioner Krissy Barrett detailed that evidence critical to the charges against Rayann El Houli emerged only after the arrival of other ISIS brides in May.