Federal Court keeps control orders on acquitted terror suspect Zainab Abdirahman-Khalif
A young woman acquitted of terror charges after spending nearly 900 days in prison is now on a curfew and her movements are restricted after a Federal control order was confirmed.
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A former Adelaide nursing student who was acquitted of terror charges will be subject to a Federal control order including a curfew and restrictions on what kind of vehicle she can drive.
Federal Court Justice Natalie Charlesworth ruled that the restrictions on Zainab Abdirahman-Khalif would “assist in preventing a terrorist act or stopping the support of such an act”.
The 25-year-old was found guilty of being a member of Islamic State, but had the conviction overturned by the South Australian Supreme Court.
An appeal by the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions of that decision is pending in the High Court.
Only weeks after she was acquitted and released from prison after spending 891 days behind bars Federal authorities asked the Federal Court to place Abdirahman-Khalif on a restrictive control order.
The order originally placed her on a curfew, restrict the kind of vehicles she can drive and prevent her from going certain places in Adelaide, such as the airport.
Justice Charlesworth placed the former nursing student on an interim control order pending a full hearing in June this year.
During the hearings Scott Henchliffe SC, for Abdirahman-Khalif, said his client was no longer a flight risk, in part because her alleged intended destination of an Islamic caliphate no longer exists.
However, lawyers for the Federal government argued that she was vulnerable to the attentions of other people linked to terror groups.
The court heard she had already been contacted by the family of deceased Adelaide siege gunman Rodney Clavell who had offered one of his sons for marriage.
On Friday Justice Charlesworth confirmed the orders but changed some restrictions on her movements around airports as well as the amount of petrol she can have in a vehicle.
She is restricted from leaving the state and cannot speak to four members of the Clavell family.
She was arrested in May 2017 and charged with intentionally being a member of Islamic State, knowing that it was a terrorist organisation, between July 14, 2016 and May 23, 2017, at Mansfield Park.
During the trial the jury heard that Abdirahman-Khalif had bought a one-way ticket for Kenya where she had allegedly been communicating with several women linked to Islamic State.
Those same women later died in a suicide attack on a police station in Mombasa, the capital city of Kenya.
During the trial prosecutors showed jurors images described as Islamic State propaganda, some of which included videos of executions and beheadings.
But a computer expert would tell the court that he could not be certain the images and videos had been downloaded deliberately.