A Sydney widow of an alleged Islamic State fighter has avoided a criminal conviction for travelling to a “hostile” part of Syria during the reign of the Islamic Caliphate.
Mariam Raad, 32, appeared before Goulburn Local Court for her sentencing after pleading guilty in May to remaining in a declared area, a Syrian province called Raqqa, from about December 2014 to March 2016. She is the first person to be charged with this offence.
Mariam Raad arrives at Goulburn Local Court.Credit: Kate Geraghty
After hearing submissions, Magistrate Geraldine Beattie discharged Raad of the convictions on the condition she is of good behaviour for 25 months, reports within a week to community corrections at the NSW town of Young where she now lives and continues to engage with her psychologist and an integrated support program.
Raad sat quietly by herself in court, her lips shaking as she regularly clenched her hands together while listening to submissions, and wiping away tears as she heard her sentence.
Agreed facts tendered in court and read out to Magistrate Beattie on Wednesday say Raad was born in Sydney and married Muhammad Zahab, an alleged Islamic State recruiter, when she was still in high school and aged 18.
Zahab later left to join Islamic State and the couple lived with a group in Turkey in 2013 with their first two children. The group were attempting to enter Syria and while Zahab was successful, Raad was not, and she returned to Sydney in February 2014 for about a month.
‘I cannot leave the land of the Caliphate.’
A text message sent by Mariam Raad to her father after she had arrived in Syria
Raad then made her way back to the Middle East with her two children, reaching the Turkish city Sanliurfa, where foreign recruits crossed the border to Syria to be a part of Islamic State. She successfully made it to Raqqa, the capital of the Islamic Caliphate, with Zahab in August 2014.
Then-foreign affairs minister Julie Bishop declared in December 2014 it was illegal for Australians to enter or remain in Raqqa province unless they had a legitimate purpose as a response to combat the threat of foreign fighters and deter Australians from moving to help fight.
Police said Raad remained in Raqqa and contacted her family in Australia about staying in Syria before and after Bishop’s statement.
Commonwealth prosecutor Sam Duggan in his submission on Wednesday for Raad’s sentencing said she had wanted to stay in Syria as she sent her father texts saying “No, I will never leave the land here” and “I cannot leave the land of the Caliphate”.
Mariam Raad with her husband Muhammad Zahab, who is reported to have been killed in 2018.
Police state at some point in 2016, Raad moved to a different part of Syria that was not declared illegal to enter by the Australian government and her husband is believed to have died from a missile strike in 2018.
Raad surrendered to anti-Islamic State forces and in 2019 was detained in al-Roj camp in Syria, whichis near the Iraqi border, with her four children, including two born since she moved to Syria.
The camp houses nearly 43,000 people who are mostly women and children from Iraq and Syria. Recent reporting from The Saturday Paper confirmed about 40 Australian women and children remain in the camp.
Minister for Home Affairs Clare O’Neil announced in October 2022 the repatriation of four Australian women and their 13 children which included Raad and her four children.
Mariam Raad was living at the Al-Roj refugee camp in northern Syria before being returned to Australia.
“The decision to repatriate these women and their children was informed by individual assessments following detailed work by national security agencies,” O’Neil said.
Raad was charged by police in January 2023.
Defence barrister for Raad, Rose Khalilizadeh, argued her client was in a coercive relationship with Zahab and “it would be unlikely for the offender to express dissatisfaction or dissent in her communications with her family”.
A psychologist report also found Raad likely suffered from complex PTSD while in Syria and Khalilizadeh argued her client’s time in the camp should also come into consideration for her sentence.
Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil announced the repatriation of Australian women, including Raad.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen
“That period spent in effective incarceration is a significant and compelling factor in this case,” Khalilizadeh said.
In response, Duggan said in his submission Raad should be convicted to deter others from offending and causing harm to themselves, but conceded the 32-year-old’s time in the camp would have been difficult.
“Clearly the time in the refugee camp was traumatic, there’s no doubt about that,” he said.
Duggan argued Raad was aware that Islamic State was engaging in hostile activity and Raqqa was dangerous, she was “reckless” and that she “spoke favourably of Islamic State” while also having opportunities not to go back when she was back in Australia without her husband in February 2014.
“It’s submitted that she wanted to stay … that’s significant in terms of the objective seriousness of the offence,” he said.
In reading out her sentence, Beattie said she could not know beyond reasonable doubt if the text messages Raad sent to her father implied she wanted to stay or if she was forced to stay.
Beattie also agreed from reading submissions and psychological reports that Raad had been in a coercive relationship and was conditioned not to question her husband’s actions, leaving her with complex PTSD, anxiety and depression and is now a single mother raising four children.
“My impression is that she was immature … in following her partner in the context of that coercive control relationship,” she said.
The historical nature of the offence, Raad’s commitment to rehabilitation and her now being a single mother with four children were other factors of Beattie’s decision.
Beattie said her decision was “very specific to this case” and it should not give significant influence over any future cases of offenders charged with remaining in a declared area.
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