Zainab Abdirahman-Khalif trial: Nursing student told police it was a coincidence she had the numbers of three active terrorists, court hears
A STUDENT accused of joining the IS extremist group told police it was “a coincidence” she had the personal phone numbers of three active terrorists, a court has heard.
- Student told friends she was ‘caught red-handed’, prosecutor says
- Expect ‘graphic, gruesome’ footage, jurors told
- ‘$170 and a one-way ticket to Turkey’
A STUDENT accused of joining the IS extremist group told police it was “a coincidence” she had the personal phone numbers of three active terrorists, a court has heard.
On Friday, a Supreme Court jury watched an interview with Zainab Abdirahman-Kahlif conducted after police searched her home in September 2016.
In it, officers show her IS propaganda found on her phone, including images of men with rifles and a beheading.
They ask why she had “scribbled out” phone numbers written in an exercise book, some of which she had contacted up to 19 times.
“It has nothing to do with terror... it’s a coincidence,” she responds.
One of the officers questions her response.
“It’s a coincidence that three terrorists’ phone numbers are on that page, is it?” he asks.
Abdirahman-Khalif replies: “Yes.”
The 23-year-old, of Mansfield Park, has pleaded not guilty to one count of being a member of a terrorist organisation between July 14, 2016 and May 23, 2017.
Prosecutors have alleged she was in contact with a three-woman terror cell in Kenya that staged a knife and petrol bomb attack on a police station.
They allege she was not complicit in the attack, but “had some knowledge it was going to occur”.
They have further alleged she tried to leave SA for Turkey, without her family’s knowledge and with just $170, to join the organisation.
Previously, the court has heard Abdirahman-Khalif told a friend, immediately after the raid, police had “caught me red-handed”.
In the interview, officers tell Abdirahman-Khalif that they have analysed “indents” in the pages of her notebooks and found them to match Arabic sayings associated with IS.
They ask why she has lists of phone numbers linked to terrorists, and why they have been drawn over in pen.
She responds they are “doodles”.
“You have not doodles anywhere else on the page, you have just tried to scribble out the phone numbers,” an officer says.
Asked what “jihad” means to her, Abdirahman-Khalif says it is about being “called to a cause”.
Killing people, she says, is “against Islam”.
“Do you think IS’ brand of Islam, their extreme version, the stoning, the beheadings, the murders, their very strict and some would say skewed view of Islam is an appropriate view?” an officer asks.
“Do you live Islam as IS preaches it? Do you agree with the version of Islam that IS preaches?”
Abdirahman-Khalif replies: “No.”
The trial, before Justice David Peek, continues.