DUBLIN — Three judges at the Special Criminal
Court in
Dublin on Monday found former soldier Lisa Smith guilty of joining
Daesh in Syria.
اضافة اعلان
Smith, 40, wept in the dock as judge Tony Hunt read
the panel’s decision, which was delivered 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.
Judge Hunt said the prosecution had established
beyond reasonable doubt that she traveled to
Syria “with her eyes open” and
pledged allegiance to the group, led by Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi. She was acquitted
of a separate charge of financing terrorism by sending 800 euros ($900) to aid
medical treatment for a Syrian man in Turkey.
Hunt said there was reasonable doubt that she
intended the money to be used for humanitarian purposes rather than to fund
terrorism. He 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 Defense 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.
At the time, the hardline Islamists ruled over vast
swathes of Syria and Iraq, attracting thousands of foreign fighters to their
cause before the group’s territorial defeat in the region. 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 towns and cities under its sway fell, Smith was forced to flee
Raqqa and then Baghouz, their last remaining stronghold, before returning to
Ireland. She was arrested on arrival at Dublin airport on December 1, 2019 with
her young daughter.
Defense lawyers argued that Smith’s presence in
Daesh territory did not make her a de facto member of the extremist Sunni
group. They have said it could only be argued “at a stretch” that she provided
some sort of 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 and organized crime
offences.
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