Aussie ISIS bride Mariam Raad sentenced after charged with willfully entering Syria

An Australian ISIS bride who was charged after following her husband Syria escaped prison ten years ago.

Mariam Raad, 32, traveled to Islamic State-controlled Syria in 2014 to join her husband Muhammad Zahab, who was believed to be a high-ranking member of ISIS.

It is believed that Zahab, a former math teacher, was murdered in 2018.

Raad returned to Australia in October 2022 and was arrested three months later following a joint investigation by the Australian Federal Police and their N.S.W counterparts.

She was charged with entering a region controlled by a terrorist organization, to which she pleaded guilty last month.

Wearing a pink headscarf and flanked by supporters, Raad appeared in Goulburn Local Court in the NSW Southern Highlands for sentencing on Wednesday, where she was conditionally discharged. ABC news reported.

She was not convicted, but must maintain good behavior for the next 25 months.

Former ISIS bride Mariam Raad (pictured outside Goulburn Court on Wednesday) was conditionally discharged and must be of good behavior for the next 25 months

The mother was charged in 2023 with entering a region controlled by a terrorist organization. Raad (pictured with her late husband Muhammad Zahab) after following her husband to ISIS-controlled Syria in 2014

Raad now lives in Young in the NSW Riverina region in the south of the state.

Her lawyer Rose Khalilizadeh told the court during closing arguments that at the time of the crime her client was a “vulnerable woman in a relationship of coercive control” who was “conditioned not to question her husband’s decision-making.”

The court heard Raad had married her husband when she was 18 and still at school – ‘just as she came out of childhood’.

Ms Khalilizadeh agreed her client chose to remain in Syria, but said Raad was isolated in a foreign country with young children.

She added that it could not be proven that Council “wanted or wanted to remain independently in Syria.”

Crown prosecutor Sam Duggan disputed Raad’s version of how much knowledge the wife had of her husband’s activities.

he told the court that while in Syria, Raad sent text messages to family members, saying she would “never leave” and that she “cannot leave the country of the caliphate.”

Mr Duggan said the messages, as well as her two attempts to enter Syria, showed the Council had favorable views towards ISIS.

Her lawyer told the court a psychological report showed Raad was “likely experiencing symptoms of complex PTSD” during the time she committed the offence, which affected her decision-making ability.

Ms Khalilizadeh said Raad’s time in a Syrian camp had exposed her to “degrading and inhumane conditions”. She said she had “essentially been imprisoned for years” and Mr Duggan did not dispute this.

Raad lives in a family compound (pictured) on the outskirts of Young in the Riverina region of NSW

Magistrate Geraldine Beattie accepted ‘the level of control and influence her husband had over her’.

Ms Beattie said Raad was alone in Syria, “a female person in a war zone”, which “raises the question: if she had wanted to leave, could she have left?”

The magistrate added that the mother had ‘very good prospects for rehabilitation’ and ‘has shown her remorse’.

Raad was one of four Australian women and thirteen children who returned to Sydney from Syria’s Roj camp in October 2022.

All four women were married to ISIS fighters who were killed or are in prison.

In 2021, Raad spoke to the ABC from the infamous Syrian camp, saying she was forced to travel to Syria and knew nothing of her husband’s activities.

“I didn’t know my husband was a senior at Islamic State, and I didn’t even know anything about my husband’s work,” she said.

Raad was one of four people charged so far with entering a designated area.

Two other cases were still before the court, while the fourth had been withdrawn, an AFP spokesman said.