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A woman charged with terrorism offences after returning to Australia “renounces violent jihad” and showed this by shunning her traditional face covering in court, her lawyer has claimed.
Rayann El Houli, 34, was charged with being a member of a terrorist organisation and entering a declared conflict zone last week, eight months after she was smuggled out of a camp in Syria.
She appeared it the Melbourne Magistrates’ Court on Monday morning as her bid for bail was pushed back to a later date to allow her lawyers more time to gather evidence in support of the application.
Addressing the court, her lawyer Peter Morrissey SC said he wanted it placed on the record in the “public arena” that Ms El Houli had renounced “ISIS and violent jihad”.
“She wants nothing to do with it not now, directly or indirectly, or in the future,” he said.
“Not for herself, not for the people she loves and specifically not for her children.”
Mr Morrissey said his client preferred to wear a niqab, an Islamic veil, but had set it aside in an effort to “submit to the court” and be seen.
“She has set it aside today for an act of good faith,” he said.
The defence barrister said Ms El Houli’s lawyers would be seeking to have her assessed by experts ahead of the bail application.
Police allege Ms El Houli travelled to the Middle East between 2013 and 2014 to join ISIS before she was detained by Kurdish forces in a displaced persons camp in March 2019 following ISIS’ collapse.
The court was told it’s alleged she married several ISIS members while in Syria, supported acts of martyrdom and the killing of nonbelievers and tried to convince others to travel to Syria.
The mother of four returned to Australia on September 25 last year.
Addressing the court, chief magistrate Lisa Hannan raised several questions, the answers to which she said would assist her in determining whether to grant bail.
These included the circumstances in which Ms El Houli was “smuggled out” of the camp and Syria, who helped and funded the effort, who she was associating with now in Australia and why the woman had declined to participate in deradicalisation programs.
Speaking to the last point, Mr Morrissey said his client was willing to engage in the programs, but the deeply traumatised woman had viewed “running a loving and law-abiding household as the best way forward for her children and herself”.
Ms El Houli’s bail application will return to court at a later date.
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