2 Canadian women who returned from Syrian camp to be released on bail

Ontario judges have ordered the release on bail of two women who were arrested upon returning to Canada last week from a prison camp in northeastern Syria.

Ammara Amjad and Dure Ahmed were released pending terrorism peace bond applications, under conditions that cannot be publicized because they are subject to publication bans.

The two women appeared Tuesday before the Ontario Court of Justice in Brampton, Ont. for separate bail hearings.

They were among four Canadian women and 10 children who landed in Montreal last week after being held for years at the al-Roj prison camp in northeastern Syria.

Another woman who was in the group Canada repatriated from Syria was released on bail in Edmonton Friday, pending a terrorism peace bond application.

A terrorism peace bond allows a judge to order the defendant to enter into an arrangement to be of good behaviour, potentially with conditions such as a curfew, or else possibly face a prison sentence. 

Branden Miller, the lawyer for Amjad, said a peace bond process is a "preventative" measure.

"There are no criminal charges at this point," he said.

Miller said his client is looking forward to reconnecting with her family and children.

"She's happy to be home, as you can imagine. She's been through quite an ordeal," he said.

The detainees in the camps are mostly women and children who were rounded up after the fall of the extremist Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant in 2019.

About 10,000 of them are foreign nationals from more than 60 countries outside Syria and Iraq, and the Kurds have asked those countries to repatriate their citizens.

Some are relatives of suspected ISIS fighters, but they have never been brought before a court.

The al-Roj prison camp is one of two displaced persons camps in the region that is now controlled by the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces.

United Nations Sec. Gen. Antonio Guterres said last month countries like Canada have a responsibility to bring their citizens home from the camps, which he said have the "worst possible conditions" and are depriving people of their rights.

This latest flight to Canada had been expected to bring more people home from Syria.

Lawyer Lawrence Greenspon reached an agreement with the federal government in January to repatriate six Canadian women and 13 children who had been part of a court action. The 10 children are all with relatives, said Greenspon.

However, two mothers and three children were not at a designated meeting point and missed the flight, Greenspon has said. He said he expects Global Affairs Canada will try to locate the five people and return them to Canada as well.

A Quebec mother and her six children who also wanted to come to Canada are not among the returnees either, Greenspon said.

While the six children have been ruled eligible for repatriation from Syria, their mother has been told she cannot join them because her security assessment is incomplete.

A Federal Court judge ruled on Jan. 20 that Canada must repatriate four Canadian men held in the camps. The federal government appealed that ruling and decision has not yet been issued.

A terrorism peace bond is also being sought for Kimberly Polman, a British Columbia woman repatriated to Canada from Syria last year.