MELBOURNE, Australia — An Australian woman appeared in court Thursday seeking bail on slavery charges after a Yazidi witness testified she was purchased, sexually assaulted and beaten while held captive by the defendant’s family in Syria.
Zeinab Ahmad, 31, faces two slavery-related charges in Melbourne Magistrates’ Court, with proceedings set to continue Friday.
Ahmad and her 53-year-old mother Kawsar Ahmad, also called Kawsar Abbas, have remained in custody since arriving back in Australia last month from a Syrian refugee camp alongside other Australian women and children connected to the Islamic State organization.
According to Detective Senior Constable Mark Clendenning’s court testimony, the unnamed Iraqi-born Yazidi victim stated that Mohammed Ahmad — Zeinab’s father and Kawsar’s spouse — purchased her for $10,000 in 2017 within Raqqa, Syria, which was then controlled by IS forces.
Clendenning testified that Kawsar participated in acquiring the teenager as a slave, describing this as an uncommon position for women within the IS-controlled territory.
“Mohammed and Kawsar had status and privileges within Islamic State usually not afforded to others that allowed exceptions to their usual practices,” Clendenning stated.
The victim was taken to the family residence where the couple lived with their five daughters, including Zeinab, who became the witness’s roommate, according to Clendenning’s testimony.
Mohammed reportedly told the victim, “I bought you for the purpose of raping and at the same time serving the home,” Clendenning relayed. He further testified that Mohammed presented her to the household saying, “I bought her for sex and to do housework.”
Court records indicate Zeinab’s first spouse died in a drone strike in 2016, after which she wed an Egyptian IS combatant who had sustained combat injuries resulting in the loss of an arm.
Police testimony alleged Zeinab witnessed her father striking the victim and pulling her by the hair down two sets of stairs within their residence. Authorities said Mohammed, currently imprisoned in Iraq, physically abused the witness two to three times monthly in front of family members.
The victim reported Mohammed sexually attacked her “many times” despite her resistance, police testified. According to Clendenning’s account, the witness said Zeinab “did not physically hurt her, although she did threaten her very badly and ordered her to do things around the house.”
Police said Mohammed sold the victim for $10,000 in 2018, sixteen months following her purchase, telling her she was “bad” and failed to follow instructions.
The Islamic State organization has systematically persecuted Yazidis, a Kurdish-speaking ethnic and religious minority population primarily located in Syria, Iraq and Turkey.
The witness testified she was 15 when she became one of 6,800 Yazidi women and children enslaved and passed between IS members 17 times across five years until Kurdish forces liberated her in 2019.
Three generations of the Ahmad family relocated from Melbourne to Syria through Turkey during 2013 and 2014. Police allege Zeinab traveled there with her spouse in 2014.
Clendenning argued that releasing Zeinab from detention would create an unacceptable danger to public safety and welfare.
He noted she had been married to multiple IS-affiliated men and remains wed to an Egyptian IS member whose current location is unknown.
“The accused has never explicitly renounced or stated that she no longer supports Islamic State since her surrender to Kurdish forces,” Clendenning testified.
She faces two crimes against humanity charges: enslavement and utilizing a slave. Both offenses carry maximum sentences of 25 years imprisonment.
