Ex-soldier guilty of terror offences
THREE judges at the special criminal court in Dublin on Monday (30) found former soldier Lisa Smith guilty of joining Daesh (Islamic State) group in Syria.
Smith, 40, wept in the dock as judge Tony Hunt read the panel’s decision, which came after a nine-week trial.
The Muslim convert, who wore a hijab to court, pleaded not guilty to membership of an unlawful terrorist group between October 28, 2015 and December 1, 2019.
Hunt said the prosecution had established beyond reasonable doubt that she travelled to Syria “with her eyes open” and pledged allegiance to the group.
She was acquitted of a separate charge of financing terrorism by sending €800 (£681) to aid medical treatment for a Syrian man in Turkey.
Hunt granted her bail until a sentencing hearing on July 11.
During the trial, which began in January, prosecutors detailed how Smith, who was a member of the Irish Defence Forces from 2001 to 2011, travelled to Daesh-controlled territory in 2015 after converting to Islam.
In 2012, she went on pilgrimage to Mecca, and expressed a desire on an Islamic Facebook page to live under Sharia law and to die a martyr.
The court was told that she bought a one-way ticket from Dublin to Turkey, crossing the border into Syria and living in Raqqa, the capital of Daesh’s self-styled caliphate.
After failing to convince her husband to join her, Smith divorced him in 2016 and married a UK national involved in the group’s armed patrols.
As Daesh lost ground to a US-led coalition on the battlefield and cities under its sway fell, Smith was forced to flee Raqqa and then Baghouz, before returning to Ireland.
She was arrested at Dublin airport on December 1, 2019 with her young daughter.
Defence lawyers argued that Smith’s presence in Daesh territory did not make her a de facto member of the extremist group. They said it could only be argued “at a stretch” that she provided assistance to the group because she had kept a home for her husband.
The three judges sat without a jury at the special criminal court, which adjudicates on cases involving terrorism as well as organised crime offences.