Lisa Smith already served a sentence in Syria and is ‘vulnerable’, court told

Lawyers for former soldier Lisa Smith, who travelled to Syria to join Isis in 2014, have asked that before imposing sentence the Special Criminal Court should consider her young child and the “appalling” conditions they suffered while in Syria.

Michael O’Higgins SC, for Smith, asked the court not to send his client to prison. Counsel referred to four psychological reports that found her to be “damaged” and “vulnerable” and he said she became attracted to the Islamic State due to her “very limited resources and significant burdens that other people from her peer group would not have had”.

Mr O’Higgins pointed to a report by Dr Anne Speckhard of the International Centre for the Study of Violent Extremism who found that Ms Smith is not in danger of further offending. Dr Speckhard interviewed Ms Smith on several occasions and found her to be “honest and straightforward” and said she sincerely denounced Isis. Dr Speckhard spoke of Ms Smith’s “extreme vulnerability” causing her to fall under the influence of others.

Mr O’Higgins said Ms Smith had already served a custodial sentence in Syria when she was held in the Al-Hawl and Ain Issa camps while she waited to be sent home to Ireland. He referred to evidence that members of Isis staying in those camps would impose cruel punishments including murdering people by setting their tents on fire. Mr O’Higgins said: “The conditions in that camp were absolutely appalling and must have been extremely frightening for anybody, particularly a mother with a small child.” He also asked the court to consider that Ms Smith has lived with a 13-hour daily curfew as part of her bail conditions since 2019. Combining the time she spent in Syrian camps and under curfew, counsel said she has already served about four years.

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Mr O’Higgins said she had been living under significant restrictions since she arrived back in Ireland and suffered from paranoia arising out of a sense that people are staring at her and that she is being judged for being a Muslim. She only leaves her home to buy groceries, he said. As she entered adulthood Ms Smith was in the “midst of a mental health crisis”, he said, due to the “intensity of her home life”. She had witnessed “destructive behaviour” growing up. Mr O’Higgins said the psychological profiles showed Smith to be “an extremely vulnerable person but accompanying that is a great level of stoicism in dealing with whatever hand she is dealt.”

Mr Justice Tony Hunt, presiding at the three-judge, non-jury court, adjourned sentencing until July 22nd. He allowed Ms Smith to remain on bail but said “no false comfort” should be taken from that. He said the court had a lot to consider and the case was a “novel” one.

Smith (40) from Dundalk, Co Louth had pleaded not guilty to membership of an unlawful terrorist group, Islamic State, between October 28th, 2015, and December 1st, 2019.

She was convicted of Isis membership following a trial at the Special Criminal Court earlier this year.

The court rejected her claim that she had gone to Islamic State simply out of a sense of religious obligation and for the innocent purpose of living under Sharia law and raising a family in a Muslim state.

In the judgment delivered in May, Mr Justice Hunt noted that religion was “irrelevant to membership of Isis” as criminal activity could not be justified by religious obligation.

Mr Justice Hunt said the prosecution had established beyond reasonable doubt that Smith’s “eyes were wide open” when she travelled to Syria. He said her reasons for going to Syria were “grounded in allegiance to or agreement with the views espoused by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi”. He said there was no “benign” explanation for her travel. He rejected claims she was naive or that she was unaware of what Isis was doing”.