Australian Woman Charged With Terrorism Seeks Bail in Melbourne Court

Rayann El Houli, 34, appeared at Melbourne Magistrates’ Court on Tuesday seeking bail on charges of travelling to a declared conflict zone and joining a terrorist organisation. GB News reported that she was arrested after returning to Australia last year. Transcripts of recordings she made while living in Syria were read in court.

GB News reported that El Houli is alleged to have filmed training her children, then aged one and two, to use a rifle in 2016, with jihadist chants playing in the background. In one recording, she allegedly asked her eldest child: “Look at me … How do they slaughter the apostate?

” Senior Constable Paul Sherlock of the Australian Federal Police told the court that in March 2016 El Houli allegedly filmed her youngest child raising an index finger in a gesture of support for Islamic State and asked what the mujahid does to the infidel.

GB News reported another scene from 2018 showed children asleep in a bed with an AK-47 rifle leaning against a wall. El Houli travelled to Syria in September 2014 with her first husband, Allak Hamad, who was killed in early 2015, according to police statements cited by GB News.

She subsequently married Abdulkadehr Assad, who was later killed, and then Mohammed Noor Masri, whom she divorced in an Islamic State sharia court.

She lived under Islamic State rule from 2014 until the group’s defeat in 2019. Upon return to Australia, El Houli refused to take part in a programme aimed at countering violent extremism, the court was told. GB News reported that earlier this year another group of Islamic State-linked women and children were allowed to re-enter Australia, leading to arrests on terrorism charges.