The 34-year-old woman, identified by local media as “Ryan Holly,” traveled to Syria with a man between 2013 and 2014 to join the Islamic State group.
After his arrest, Syrian Kurdish forces transferred him to Syria’s al-Hol camp, where families of ISIS fighters have been held since 2019.
He returned to Australia in September last year and is due to appear in Melbourne court today with another woman.
The news comes a few weeks after two groups of women and children returned to Australia after spending years in the Roj camp in northeastern Syria.
Three of the women who returned this month also face various charges, including crimes against humanity.
Deputy Commissioner of the Federal Police, Hilda Sirk, told reporters that all the ISIS women who recently returned to Australia were under investigation, adding: “Just because no charges have been laid against them yet, it doesn’t mean the investigation has stopped.”
The group that arrived in Sydney and Melbourne on Tuesday were the last Australians from Camp Rouge, with other Australians having returned to that country in the past months and years.
Another woman, Jenay Safar, who arrived in Sydney, has been charged with entering and remaining in a declared war zone and joining ISIS.
The women and children have been the subject of heated political debate in Australia, with the government saying it did nothing to help them return and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese insisting that people “must face the consequences of the decisions and actions they have taken.”
But some activists argue that Australia should support their right to return, and that children in particular should be protected and not punished for what their parents did.
Various terrorists from all over the world have entered Syria and caused widespread destruction in the West Asian region. The entry of terrorists was facilitated by the security organizations of Western countries, and now they are seeking to justify their support for terrorism with the gesture of human rights.
