James Oaten

So they've made points, for instance, that this is going to be a very long court case given that all the witnesses or many witnesses and experts are overseas and that'll take a long time.

She...

has already spent time in the camps.

They're kind of suggesting that that should be taken into account as, you know, when you spend time in jail, that's usually knocked off your sentence.

I don't know how far that would ever go, but they said it must be taken into account.

And then finally on this issue of the child, they've said when you take into account all these things

years that she'll spend incarcerated or in custody while awaiting for trial.

That's a lot of years that she'll be without the child when the child needs her mum by her side for that full rehabilitation potential.

Even saying that ultimately if she is convicted, which we're a long way off getting anywhere near that because it's only a bail hearing, that the punishment might end up being shorter than the time in custody.

But what the Chief Magistrate has said to that is that this is a first, crimes against humanity, these charges.

But any notion or argument that this will be an exceptionally long legal process is just speculation.

We just don't know.

Well, it'll be higher bar because there are more charges.

And again, as you've pointed out, with Zainab Ahmed, she does have that young girl.

Of course, I can't make that same argument.

Well, I mean, magistrates and judges and so on can make different rulings.

For starters, but you'd have to boil down to that the seriousness of the allegations against Maryam Raad were not on the same extent for the Ahmads here.

As we've mentioned, her defense team also made the arguments that she was not a threat.

She needed to be there for the support of her young children.

And bail was granted.