27 May 2023 , 08:26
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A former soldier turned Islamic State (IS) member has walked free from prison before finishing her full sentence.
Lisa Smith, 42, was found guilty last year of being a member of the world's most brutal terrorist group between 2015 and 2019, but on Wednesday afternoon she walked out the gates of Limerick Prison.
Smith, from Dundalk, County Louth, was a member of the Irish Defence Forces from 2001 to 2011 when she converted to Islam.
She applied to be discharged from the force after inconsistencies with her faith and her role. Namely, not being allowed to wear a hijab.
In October 2015, she bought a one-way ticket from Dublin to Turkey and then crossed into an IS-controlled area of Syria.
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Lisa Smith before she converted to a muslim
Former member of the Defence Forces Lisa Smith arriving at the Special Criminal Court in Dublin (PA)She then met and married British jihadist Sajid Aslam who later died in fighting. They had one child together, who is now in the care of her family.
Delivering her trial, 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.
When she was arrested back in Ireland, Smith told police she believed that if she didn't travel to join IS she would burn for eternity in hell.
But after she fled Syria in 2019, she realised there was no religious obligation on her to go.
"I had enough, I did my time. It was a prison. It was four years in prison, that’s the way we look at it now", she said.
Lisa was the first person to be convicted in an Irish court of an Islamic terrorist offence committed abroad.
The maximum sentence for membership in a terrorist group is eight years in prison and Hunt noted how he had given her a remarkably low sentence of 15 months.
He said there was no evidence she did more than ally herself with IS, but that it was "nonetheless serious" for an Irish citizen to take up allegiance with a terrorist organisation.
He said there was evidence that she followed rather than led, but she also knew the nature of the terrorist organisation.
Hunt also said that she had a difficult time in Syria before being brought back to Ireland in December 2019, but said that was a "foreseeable consequence of her choice to attach herself to IS."
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He said that Smith had been of good behaviour since returning to Ireland and there was no suggestion that she was a source of danger. He added: “In future, her focus will be her daughter, therefore the likelihood of re-offending is low.”
Smith was described as a model prisoner while at the prison’s women’s wing, which allowed her to have an early release.
Speaking to the Sunday World before she into prison last year she rejected calls made by former jihadists that she "free herself from the psychological mental prison of Islam", saying: "That's not going to happen, no! I love my religion, it's what I live for now."