Australian IS-linked woman granted permission to return home

An Australian woman linked to the Islamic State group has been given authorisation to return to Australia, after the government was advised it could no longer enforce a criminal exclusion order.

The home affairs minister, Tony Burke, said the Australian, understood to be former Sydney woman Hodan Abby, would face an unprecedented level of security monitoring once she arrives in the country, including constant monitoring and requirements to report to authorities regularly.

She is the last of a group of Australian women and children who sought to return home from a refugee camp in northern Syria, years after traveling to the Middle East with husbands and fathers who were fighting with the Islamic State terror group.

Burke told ABC radio on Thursday morning that the permit to travel was the final stage of the temporary exclusion order process governing Abby’s movements.

The original block on her return was issued after advice from spy agency Asio, but the government said it no longer has legal powers to stop her returning.

“The temporary exclusion order applies until a [return] permit is issued. And when a permit is requested, a permit lawfully has to be issued,” he said.

“I’ve been working through with my department, my agencies, Australian federal police and Asio, and with the lawyers to see every possible condition we can put on that permit.

“We received the final advice yesterday that we can no longer have an exclusion condition any longer for her.”

The government has not said when Abby will return to Australia. She was blocked from boarding a flight from Damascus in May.

She will be monitored at home, work or study and whenever she is in the community. The conditions of the permit require her to give 24 hours notice before using a communications device, such as a mobile phone or a public pay phone.

“There will be a very high level of scrutiny and surveillance,” Burke said. “That’s the absolute legal limit we’ve been able to go to and our agencies are ready.”

But her return in coming days will spark renewed political criticism of Labor’s handling of the group and the months-long drama of their attempts to return home.

The women and children all spent more than a decade in the Middle East, firstly under Islamic State rule, and then in squalid detention camps after escaping the violent end of the so-called caliphate.

Some of the children were born in the camp and have never lived normal lives in Australia.

Members of the group have already faced criminal charges after making it back to Australia, including over alleged enslavement, joining a prescribed terror group and crimes against humanity.

Coalition frontbencher James Paterson accused the government of making excuses about the pending return.

“This is a government which frankly just hasn’t had its heart in protecting Australia from this dangerous cohort of people,” he said.

“The government should have used every single lever at its power to keep these people offshore and they have failed to do so.”

The Asio boss, Mike Burgess, told the ABC that his agency was involved in the case.

“I’m satisfied that my organisation is ready for the return,” he said.

“When there are Australians who have been overseas in places like Syria and Iraq who represent security concerns, we assess them. We know the level of the risk and anyone who’s considered a high or medium risk gets my agency’s full attention.”