Lisa Smith

Ms Smith (40), from Dundalk, Co Louth, an Islamic convert and former Irish soldier, travelled to Syria after terrorist leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi called on all ...

She entered Isis territory from Turkey “wilfully and in a calculated fashion” and once in Syria lived in Isis accommodation, counsel said. You don’t have to commit an act of propaganda, you are the propaganda. He said that even if Ms Smith knew that Georgelas was a member of Isis, it is not a criminal offence to send money for his personal use. On arrival, Mr Gillane said, she was “embraced by him and his terrorist group”. He said there were hundreds of thousands of people living in Raqqa yet the court “hasn’t heard a single witness who could tell you what it was like”. He said she was vital to al-Baghdadi’s narrative because one of the key strategic objectives of the terrorist group was to get people to “cleave to it from abroad, to join and become part of it. He said participation can be inferred from a person’s activities and state of mind. By May 2015, Mr Gillane said Georgelas had declared to the world that he was a member of Isis. He had been injured fighting in Syria and Ms Smith said she sent the money “to get him back on his feet”. She has pleaded not guilty to membership of an unlawful terrorist group, Islamic State, between October 28th, 2015 and December 1st, 2019. Her journey to Syria was in response to the call from al-Baghdadi, who Mr Gillane said had declared that to answer his call was to become a member of Isis. He said she castigated another contributor for suggesting that women could fight for Isis. He said that if women were allowed to fight, Ms Smith may have been willing, but the evidence shows that when she went to Syria for the first time in 2013 she was “laughed at and told to go to the kitchen”. He said Ms Smith’s role in Syria was to be a dutiful wife and to create a home. He said the prosecution was trying to dispense with that by saying that if she travelled to the Islamic State and helped to build the state or supported the aims of Isis, then she is “subsumed as a member of that organisation” without intending to join or being accepted.