Australian Federal Police investigators were ready to charge a recently returned ISIS bride with being a member of a terrorist organisation seven years ago while she was still in Syria.

A court attendance notice for Janai Safar was prepared on May 8, 2019 but could not be served on her until she was arrested at Sydney Airport last Thursday night. 

The notice listed Safar's address in 2019 as Roj Camp, Hasakah, Syria, and the charges were intended to come before Queanbeyan Local Court.

Safar is accused of knowingly being a member of a terrorist organisation - ISIS - in Syria between April 8, 2015 and May 6, 2019. 

She is further accused of entering and remaining in a 'declared area' - Syria's al-Raqqa Province - between April 8, 2015 and November 27, 2017.

Each offence carries a maximum of 10 years' imprisonment.

Safar remains behind bars at Silverwater Women's Correctional Centre in Sydney's west after failing to convince a judge she should be reunited with her nine-year-old son.

The 32-year-old was among four women linked to ISIS fighters who touched down in Australia on May 7, almost two weeks after leaving the Roj detention camp in north-eastern Syria.

Safar, who was with her son, was escorted off the plane by federal police shortly after landing at Sydney Airport and charged by the NSW Joint Counter Terrorism Team.

She wore a white hijab and green tracksuit to appear the following afternoon in online bail court, where Judge Daniel Covington denied her release application.

Barrister Michael Ainsworth had sought Safar's release by attempting to make a case that her situation represented the required 'exceptional circumstances'.

Mr Ainsworth said Safar was 21 when she went to Syria and there were questions about her degree of involvement in Islamic State.

She might have been coerced to take part or was in fear of others who were more deeply involved in the terrorist organisation, he said.

Mr Ainsworth also said Safar would not be able to help her son reintegrate into Australian society if she remained in jail.

'She's the only family he knows having spent his entire life in a refugee camp under guard,' Mr Ainsworth said.

'This lady and her son have lived in truly horrific conditions in these refugee camps for many years and are plainly likely to be suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder and other psychological conditions.'

Mr Ainsworth said the poor sanitary conditions and lack of proper nourishment in refugee camps had exacerbated Safar's existing medical conditions.

'She's been in a situation that is in itself custodial in another country,' he told Judge Covington.

Mr Ainsworth said Safar's alleged offending effectively ended in early 2017 when she left Raqqa in northern Syria and was detained in a series of refugee camps.

From that time, Safar could not be considered a participant in any conflict, Mr Ainsworth told the court.

Brian Massone, for the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions, said the nature and seriousness of the charges Safar faced outweighed any of her personal circumstances.

He accepted Safar had been living in 'quite horrible' conditions and did not contest the significance of the bond between mother and child.

However, Mr Massone said Safar had left Australia in a 'premeditated and considered fashion' to join an organisation which spread 'misery, destruction and discord through the world'.

'That organisation being, of course, the so-called Islamic State,' Mr Massone told the court.

Mr Massone said Safar had not only gone to a territory controlled by Islamic State but had chosen to remain there and intended to join ISIS.

'She was taking steps towards membership or was in fact a member,' he said.

Mr Massone said the Crown against Safar was 'very strong' and would rely on messages she sent to her mother to show she intended joining ISIS.

Judge Covington found after considering the Crown and defence submissions there were no exceptional circumstances to grant Safar's release application.

Police will allege Safar travelled to Syria in 2015 to join her husband, who had previously left Australia to join ISIS.

She returned to Australia for the sake of her son and to finish her nursing degree, according to documents obtained by Nine newspapers.

Safar stated her son was her highest priority and that she had come home to ensure he received an education and integrated into society.

She has extensive problems with her kidneys, suffers from stomach and urinary issues and had been experiencing anxiety.

Safar was a nursing student in Sydney when she left the country in 2015, supposedly to visit family in Lebanon, before travelling to Turkey.

It is not known how Safar ended up in Syria, where she married an Australian man who died in a motor vehicle accident in 2018.

Safar claims she was under constant surveillance of handlers while living in Islamic State territory, that she could never speak freely and felt 'vulnerable and alone' at the time.

That marks a stark contrast to remarks Safar made in 2019, when she said she did not regret living under Islamic State and had no plans to return home.

Safar also vowed to raise her son in a non-Islamist country, amid fears he could be taken away from her if she ever came back to Australia.

'It was my decision to come here to go away from where women are naked on the street,' she told The Australian in 2019.

'I don't want my son to be raised around that.

'I don't regret coming to Syria. I don't regret living under Islamic State.'

Safar's son is staying with his grandfather, Safar's father.

Grandmother Kawsar Abbas, 54, along with her daughters Zahra Ahmed, 33, and Zeinab Ahmed, 31, and eight children arrived in Melbourne the same night Safar was arrested at Sydney Airport.

Abbas has been charged with four crimes against humanity - enslavement, possessing a slave, using a slave and engaging in slave trading.

Those offences carry a maximum penalty of 25 years' imprisonment.

Police will allege Abbas travelled to Syria in 2014 with her husband and children, and was complicit in the purchase of a female slave for US$10,000, and knowingly kept the woman in her home.

Zeinab is charged with using a slave and engaging in slave trading, both of which carry a maximum penalty of 25 years' imprisonment. 

She allegedly travelled to Syria in 2014 with her family and knowingly kept a female slave in the home.

Zahra Ahmed was allowed to walk free and was shielded from the media by a large group of men dressed in black as she left Melbourne Airport.

Zeinab and Abbas faced the Melbourne Magistrates Court on Friday and again on Monday but did not apply for bail.

Zeinab is expected to apply for bail on June 4, while Kawsar is set to make a bid for freedom on June 16. 

Safar is next due to appear in Downing Centre Local Court on July 15.