Ex-Irish soldier’s IS membership conviction falls short of Irish law, court told

Lisa Smith, 43, from Dundalk in Co Louth, is appealing against her conviction for membership of the IS terror group at the Court of Appeal.

The former Defence Forces member was found guilty of IS membership in 2022, but was cleared of financing terrorism, after a nine-week trial at Dublin’s non-jury Special Criminal Court.

Smith, a convert to Islam, went to Syria in 2015 after terrorist leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi called on Muslims to travel there.

She had pleaded not guilty to charges of membership of IS and providing funds to benefit the group.

Smith was sentenced to 15 months in prison and lost an appeal against the severity of the sentence in 2023.

Opening the case at the Court of Appeal on Thursday, her barrister Michael O’Higgins SC said there was no “smoking gun or burning match” that Smith did anything for IS while she lived in Syria.

He said it was not possible to join a terrorist organisation by “osmosis” and said she had led a “totally anonymous” life as a housewife during her time there, where she was subjected to serious assaults by her former husband.

Continuing his submissions on Friday, Mr O’Higgins compared Smith’s IS membership conviction with the way membership of the IRA and of organised crime gangs is defined.

He said it was “a flawed...
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