Former Irish soldier Lisa Smith sentenced to 15 months in jail for membership of ISIS

48 comments
  1. She will serve less than half of that. The Dochas summer camp for women isn’t even really prison. That sentence is extremely lenient for being a member of ISIS and it sends a message to terrorists internationally that Ireland is a soft touch and a safe space for them.

  2. 15 months and the court would make allowance for any time she had already spent in custody.

    She’s been here since 2019 if I’m right, does that mean her sentence may have already been served and she’ll be out?

  3. What a complete joke. She used her child as an excuse to get a lighter sentence. If it was a male who defected from the Defence Forces and joined the biggest terrorist organisation the west has seen in the last 10 years do you think he would get off so lightly? Not a chance. Our courts are a farce

  4. Obviously 15 months is very lenient, but I wonder was that because this was the first case of it’s type heard before the courts? Trying to wrap my head around the logic.

  5. Hate to get medieval but she’s a traitor to the nation. There are people with harsher sentences for possession

  6. Not long enough she is an accomplice to mass murder. She should’ve been convicted of crimes against humanity and left to rot in prison or let the victims of ISIS have her for their own trial they deserve justice.

  7. Absolute joke of a sentence, apparently not even being a member of ISIS is enough to be treated harshly by the justice system here.

  8. Was the minister for justice not just last week going on about taking hate crimes more seriously?

    She was a member of a barbarous group of violent terrorists and gets 15 months? I mean for fuck sake

  9. Doesn’t membership in the RA get you a couple of years from the special criminal court? Why not treat her the same as them.

  10. Just wondering what the sentence would be if she was a member of republican paramilitary group compared to ISIS

  11. A lad in the US got 20 years for just trying to join isis. A woman in France got 14 years for going to Syria to join isis. Germany gave a woman 10 years for it. Holland 4 years. Iraq are just hanging them and have executed French citizen for joining isis. Lisa must have paid her TV licence.

  12. **tl;dr**: I think this is a case of a bad prosecution (or just a weak case) as opposed to soft sentencing.

    This is a conviction for simply consorting with a known terror group (moving there).

    Her defence was that she moved there under ‘religious obligation’, was lied to about what IS meant, ‘ran with the crowds’ as the fighting happened, and was just swept up in the whole thing, including getting married to an abusive IS fighter – and the prosecution failed to prove ‘beyond reasonable suspicion’ that she actually aided the terror group in any tangible way (which would have been a much more severe sentence).

    So although that’s an extremely, extremely generous reading of the situation, the prosecution failed to prove it was entirely false – and so that’s what the judge is sentencing based on.

    So he gave her 2.5 years, halved for good behaviour, no criminal record, 10 years of military service, and having a dependent young child: So 15 months.

    If you think she knowingly joined a terrorist organization to actively support their goals, then that’s of course a complete let-off and absolute bollox. The judge might agree in his own mind, even.

    But because the prosecution couldn’t prove their case, the judge has to sentence based on the facts of: she moved to Syria when she absolutely shouldn’t have, having been lied to by a religious recruiter, then got swept up in a complex and dangerous conflict while trying to protect her kid, and just kept her head down, while doing no actual fighting, terrorism or support of IS throughout this whole time.

    ######Key quotes from the article.

    > He said the headline sentence before mitigation was two years and six months…the court was giving Smith a 50pc discount… noted… previous good character, had no prior convictions … positive contribution to society… 10 years of military service… mother with a young child in her care and had been of good behaviour since returning…

    #

    > Smith’s defence was that she travelled to IS territory as part of a religious obligation, that she did not aid the terror group

    #

    > Judge Hunt said Smith travelled to Syria after conducting “extensive research,” she “knew full well” the techniques and views of those who enforced Sharia Law where she wanted to live.

    #

    > Judge Hunt said there was nothing beyond “justifiable suspicion” of the precise nature of Smith’s activities in Syria.

  13. The amount of taxpayer time and money wasted for that clown car sentence. The revolving door of the Irish legal system strikes again.

    Would have been cheaper to drone strike her.

  14. Hahahahaha imagine running off to join ISIS and getting away with it

    >He backdated the sentence to June last year to take account of time Smith had already spent in custody.

    And does this mean she’ll be out before the end of October this year?

  15. This has sent out a signal to all international jihadists that Ireland is a soft touch and they can base themselves here without consequence.

  16. 15 months for joining ISIS.

    84 months for smuggling garlic.

    When you look into the particulars of the garlic case the 6 years becomes a lot more justifiable (it was tax evasion on over 1,000 tonnes), but still its just mental on so many levels how this is a 15 month sentence

  17. So trafficking weed can get you 10 plus years… Yet joining ISIS, knowing full well it has declared Ireland an enemy and commits massacres and human rights abuses gets you 15 months.

    This country is a fucking joke. May the rest of her days be as horrific as the final moments of ISIS’ victims. This is not justice. She is the lowest form of scum.

  18. People like her should have just been handed over to the Syrian and Iraqi authorities to do with as they please. The amount of suffering that group caused only for her to slink off to the soft touch capital of the world and get fuck all time is an insult to what people went through. Sickening.

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