Lisa Smith: Former Irish soldier who joined Islamic State is jailed for 15 months

[MenInG]

Former Irish soldier Lisa Smith has been jailed for 15 months for being a member of Islamic State.

The 40-year-old, a former member of the Irish Defence Forces, was found guilty in May after a nine-week trial at the non-jury Special Criminal Court in Dublin.

Delivering the verdict, Judge Tony Hunt said the prosecution had established beyond reasonable doubt that she travelled to Syria "with her eyes open" and pledged allegiance to the group, then led by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

The three-judge court acquitted Smith of a separate charge of financing terrorism by sending €800 (£680) towards medical treatment for a Syrian man in Turkey.

Smith, from Dundalk, County Louth, was a member of the Irish Defence forces from 2001 to 2011, when she converted to Islam.

She applied for discharge, the court heard, because of inconsistencies between her faith and her role in the army, in particular being refused permission to wear a hijab.

In October 2015, she bought a one-way ticket, travelled from Dublin to Turkey, and crossed the border into an IS-controlled area of Syria.

The judge said the purpose of Smith's travel to Syria was to consummate her burgeoning relationship with the Islamic State.

There, after a previous marriage ended, she married Sajid Aslam, a Briton whom the court was told "had done a sniper's course on her advice".

Smith had a daughter, born in June 2017, before she returned to Ireland in December 2019 after the collapse of Islamic State.

She was arrested at Dublin Airport and charged with terror offences.

Lisa Smith: Alleged Islamic State member and Irish ex-soldier encouraged British husband to take snipers course, court told

During her trial, the court was told that Smith had "endeavoured to access IS-controlled territory and sought out the means by which this could be done".

The prosecution, said that Smith had "enveloped herself in the standard or black flag of Islamic State".

https://news.sky.com/story/lisa-smi...slamic-state-is-jailed-for-15-months-12656745

 

[Robert]

A sad tale to read.

 

[James]

Interesting that the girl got a 15 month jail sentence but some others who are suspected of ISIS sympathies have been given much harsher punishments.

 

[Robert]

Interesting that the girl got a 15 month jail sentence but some others who are suspected of ISIS sympathies have been given much harsher punishments.

Other Irish?

 

[James]

Other Irish?

Thinking more about the British girl who has had her passport revoked.

 

[Robert]

Thinking more about the British girl who has had her passport revoked.

Different national governments. Ireland is more liberal than UK in some ways.

Maybe Home Secretary Javid was trying to look tough to his xenophobic Hate Mail reading base by revoking Begum's citizenship.

 

[Technics 1210]

If you are White/Christian/Jew/Fighting for a Judeo-Christian agenda - it's a different set of rules.

 

[mazkhan]

Yet the child shamima begum who was groomed is not allowed back and allowed a fair trial so much so she was barred entry which led to the death of her newborn baby in the kurdish run prison camp.

 

[Robert]

Yet the child shamima begum who was groomed is not allowed back and allowed a fair trial so much so she was barred entry which led to the death of her newborn baby in the kurdish run prison camp.

As I said - different nations, different governments, different legal systems, different attitudes to crime and punishment. "The West" is not all one homogenous entity, you know.

Though it cannot have helped Begum to have been born brown.

 

[MenInG]

Another one

==


A 19-year-old man has been given life with a minimum term of six years for planning to stab police and soldiers.

Police believe Matthew King, who converted to extreme Islamism during lockdown, could have been hours away from carrying out an attack when they arrested him.

King will serve a discretionary life sentence of a minimum of six years, minus the 367 days he spent on remand.

The judge praised King's mother for reporting her suspicions to police.

In January this year, King pleaded guilty at the Old Bailey to the preparation of terrorist acts between December 2021 and 17 May 2022.

Sentencing him on Friday, Judge Mark Lucraft KC said: "When it comes to the minimum term that you will serve, I make it plain that I am not ordering that you are to be released at the end of it.

"Whether you will be released or not at that stage or at any later stage will be a matter for the parole board to consider only when the minimum term has been served."

Judge Lucraft warned King that if he was released he would remain on licence and liable to recall for the rest of his life.

"In my judgement you are someone where there is a significant risk to members of the public or serious harm," the judge told King.

'Extremist Islamist'
Police believe King turned from being a "troubled young man" to a potential "self-initiated terrorist" while stuck at home during the Covid-19 lockdowns.

Cdr Dominic Murphy, the Met's head of counter-terrorism, told journalists that King "held really extreme anti-Western views, he had an extremist Islamist mindset and he was intending to carry out a terrorist attack either here or abroad".

"It was imminent," Cdr Murphy said.

Prosecuting barrister Paul Jarvis told the court King had dabbled in drugs since early secondary school, was expelled and left education at 16 with no qualifications.

He converted to Islam in 2020 and, at first, his behaviour improved, but in 2021 he began criticising his sisters' clothing as immodest. His mother contacted the government anti-extremism agency, Prevent, because she feared the videos he was watching promoted hatred.

Officers from the Metropolitan Police arrested King at his home at Wickford in Essex on 18 May last year.

Examination of his phone revealed evidence of him viewing extremist videos which officers believe had convinced him he should kill or torture a British soldier either in the UK or abroad.

The phone also showed he had joined an online chat group where he discussed terrorist funding and travel routes to Syria.

He had changed his WhatsApp status to "kill non-Muslims" and recorded himself rapping to his own lyrics about fellow terrorists in Belmarsh Prison and detonating a bomb, officers found.

In 2022, in the weeks before his arrest, King began carrying out reconnaissance in east London, including on police officers patrolling outside Stratford railway station, as well as at Stratford police station and magistrates' court.

Mr Jarvis told the court that among videos found on his phone was one near the police station, overlaid with a soundtrack including the words: "Coldly kill them with hate and rage. Plan your perfect killing spree."

On 17 May 2022, a CCTV camera had captured him filming after dark outside the 7 Rifles army barracks in east London.

He had also purchased military goggles and gloves, and carried a balaclava and a "shihada" jihadist flag, sometimes wearing combat clothing to the mosque.

Several of the mosques he attended warned him several times about his behaviour, and one decided he was no longer welcome, Mr Jarvis told the court.

Members of the public who called the police about King included members of two WhatsApp groups he had joined called Southend Brothers and Southend Shurah.

King was put under surveillance, and his social media posts of police officers, captioned with the words "Target Acquired", heightened concerns at how fast he appeared to be moving towards an attack. These concerns led to his arrest.

Evidence of King's efforts to buy a hunting knife online helped police build the case against him - he had to give passport details to prove his age, under new rules brought in since 2019.

Although King never bought a weapon, police say he would have easily been able to obtain a kitchen knife to carry out attacks, though potential terrorists often prefer bigger hunting knives for their shock factor.

Officers also obtained Snapchat messages King sent to a girl who was still in the sixth form, in which he said he wanted to travel to Syria to become a martyr.

They exchanged messages about how they would like to mutilate members of the British and American armed forces.

Miss A wrote to him: "We can't let them die quick tho. Slow painful death akhi... I'll guide you through it. Or bring him or her home."

He said he was "training for Jihad" and just wanted "to kill people".

Mr Jarvis told the court that on 17 May 2022, the day before King's arrest, the girl messaged him to say she wanted to concentrate on her exams. King replied he would "be worshipping Allah" and he might soon be "on the news".

 

[Champ_Pal]

The woman can never be trusted. She is brainwashed and will act on her beliefs again. Western nations are stupid.