Isis bride must face justice on home turf

TODAY, we feature an extraordinary interview with Lisa Smith, the former Defence Forces member who became an Isis bride and who now faces an uncertain future in a detention camp in Syria.

She tells of her life with her first husband, a Tunisian, and of her second marriage to an English jihadi by whom she has a young daughter. She is adamant she took no part in any of the stomachchurning barbarity visited by Isis, and is equally adamant that all she wants to do now is return home.

Wherever you stand on this, what is undeniable is that a child is involved here, a girl born to an Irish mother. Though the child was born in Syria, it is unlikely she would be denied Irish citizenship if it were sought.

We also believe, though, that Lisa Smith has a right to return. A healthy democracy is responsible for all its citizens. If we are to start being selective about this, where do we draw the line? If a young woman is caught in Thailand trying to smuggle €1m worth of heroin, do we abandon her too?

It would be far better to bring Lisa Smith home, detain her and question her. Ireland has robust laws banning membership of terror organisations, and if Smith has broken them, or broken any international law to which Ireland is a signatory, the place to determine that is in a court of law, not on social media.

Every effort must be made to have Smith and her child returned. What better lesson to teach a child trapped in a foul refugee camp than to free her from the world of death and cruelty she was born into in Syria, and return her to a nation that values freedom, compassion and equality above all else.