Family of Isis bride Smith ‘heartbroken’ over baby pictures
THE family of Isis bride Lisa Smith have said that images of her baby daughter in a refugee camp have broken their hearts and that they want Lisa and her child to come home.
They also revealed that the gardaí called to the house just before Christmas, 2015 to tell them that Lisa was now in Syria.
In an exclusive interview with the Irish Mail on Sunday, Ms Smith’s father, George, said he is ‘heartbroken’ and worried about the grandchild he’s never met.
Rakeya, now two-years-old, was born in Isis territory. ‘It’s killing me knowing she’s stuck over there. It’s breaking my heart,’ the father of four told the newspaper. Lisa’s sister, Lorna, said she is frustrated by the ‘lies’ being spread about Lisa.
She said: ‘There’s been a lot of lies and, until people know the truth about Lisa and the child and her background, they can’t judge us.’
George said Lisa turned to Islam after seeing a psychiatrist in Newry. ‘You’d never see her in a bad mood. She was so happygo-lucky. But at the end of her time in the army things changed – she made a lot of changes very quickly. She had a breakdown and went to see a man in Newry who told her to look at religion as a way of healing herself,’ he said.
Ms Smith, who spent 10 years in the Defence Forces, left Ireland to join Isis in Syria in September 2015.
Her sister, Lorna, recounts when she discovered Lisa had joined one of the world’s most brutal terrorist organisations.
She said: ‘Lisa left Ireland in September 2015 and the gardaí came just before Christmas telling us they’d heard she was in Syria. They said they’d heard it off the streets.’
Lorna vividly remembers the day her sister Lisa left their home in Co. Louth.
‘I was with her the morning she left. She came downstairs with a suitcase. I asked her where she was going and she just said, “I’m away” she husband.’ Lisa was married and that going a was UK back it. jihadi, We thought to Sajid her Aslam, Raqqa, after in Isis divorcing terror her capital, first husband, a 21-year-old Tunisian.
She messaged her family about her British husband. ‘She told us her husband was a very bad man,’ Lorna said.
‘He used to hit her and beat her up. He was a very violent man. Any money she got he’d take it off her and spend on PlayStation games. Any time Lisa would ask for food, to get her child nappies he’d take it off her. ‘She said that the child was going around with no nappies and that the child was having accidents on the ground and [her husband] would sit and look at this. She’d say: “How can he watch this going on and do nothing?” ’ she added. Describing the family as being ‘in a state of shock’, Lorna said she worries about Rakeya, who faces a future in a camp built for 10,000 people, but which now houses more than 70,000 who fled Isis-controlled territory. ‘We’re worried about the summer. It gets so hot over there and we’re worried about a small child getting dehydration,’ Lorna said.
‘She made a lot of changes quickly’