A Sydney man who sat behind a group of ISIS brides on his flight home to Australia has accused authorities of giving the women 'special treatment'.
Lee McCutcheon, who claims he was seated two rows back from the women on a Qatar Airways flight from Doha to Sydney on Tuesday, said he had to wait for the group to be taken off the plane before he could disembark.
'Welcome home, all that travelling and you've got to wait 15 minutes for them to take the ISIS brides off,' the retired professional bodybuilder said in an Instagram video. 'You know the wives that went over to fight with their husbands to kill Australians and Americans. They were on my flight, they kept that quiet. They get special treatment while I get searched by customs. Welcome to Australia, people - we love terrorists here, come on down!'
His comments come just hours after a father of one of the brides thanked the Albanese government for allowing his daughter to return. Zakaria Zahab also insisted critics are 'very wrong' about his daughter Nesrine, who he said made a 'mistake' when she married an ISIS fighter at the age of 21.
'I thank the Australian government very much, it's the best country in the world,' Mr Zahab told reporters outside his Bankstown home in Sydney's south-west. 'When you're young, you do so many mistakes. You don't get charged on that mistake. This is not the end of your life. You start again. We are very happy. Who wouldn't be happy if his daughter comes back after 10 years? Who wouldn't be?'
Nesrine has previously claimed she did not willingly enter Syria and live under the Islamic State regime during a visit to the region. In 2019, she told ABC News she had been on a holiday in Lebanon when she 'snuck away' to support refugees on the Turkish side of the Syrian border. 'Who walks into a war zone? I was going to see Syrians, yes, because of what they're going through,' she said.
Ms Zahab claimed she was brought into a building in Syria, her phone and passport were taken and she was told she was an Islamic State citizen. 'I found that I was in Syria, did I have a heart attack? Of course,' she said. 'Did I cry and scream and chuck a fit like a little girl? I chucked the biggest tantrum. Did it work? No. I'm still here.'
Nesrine was among a group of four brides and six children who landed in Sydney on Qatar Airways flight QR908 from Doha on Tuesday evening. Two other women and seven children landed in Melbourne about 4.30pm. The cohort was not charged by the Victoria and NSW Joint Counter Terrorism Teams on arrival. However, police have refused to rule out the prospect of future charges.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and his government have continued to insist that they have not supported the group's return to Australia. 'The government has not and will not provide any assistance to this group,' Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke said on Tuesday. 'These are people who have made the horrific choice to join a dangerous terrorist organisation and to place their children in an unspeakable situation. As we have said many times, any members of this cohort who have committed crimes can expect to face the full force of the law.'
'ISIS brides' describes women recruited by the Syrian-based terror group Islamic State (IS) and moved to Iraq or Syria to marry fighters and raise their children between 2012 and 2016.
