Lisa Smith watched ‘barbaric’ Isis drowning video before going to Syria

Former soldier Lisa Smith watched a video of men being drowned in a cage by the Islamic State (Isis) and posted a message to a WhatsApp group saying: “Now I understand why they were drowned. I didn’t know the other half of the story,” the Special Criminal Court has heard.

Ms Smith said during garda interviews that she meant she understood why the men were drowned but not that she agreed with it. She described the killings as “barbaric” and said the video made her feel “disgusted”.

The 39-year-old from Dundalk, Co Louth has pleaded not guilty to membership of an unlawful terrorist group, Isis, between October 28th, 2015 and December 1st, 2019. She has also pleaded not guilty to financing terrorism by sending €800, via a Western Union transfer, to a named man on May 6th, 2015.

Det Sgt Carrie O’Connor told prosecution counsel Seán Gillane SC that she interviewed Ms Smith at Kevin Street station on December 3rd, 2019.

Ms Smith had been arrested on suspicion of Isis membership two days earlier at Dublin Airport after flying to Ireland from Syria, where she had travelled to join the Muslim caliphate about four years earlier.

Det Sgt O’Connor agreed that gardaí put to Ms Smith a series of exchanges from June 24th, 2015 between the accused and others on a WhatsApp group.

‘Eye for an eye’

The witness said Ms Smith had posted that she had “just seen that Islamic State killed spies by locking them in a cage and drowning them”. She had also seen someone being fired in a rocket. Ms Smith said she was asking if these things were allowed under Islam.

She said she did not agree with what was done but that some Muslims said it was allowed because it was “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth”.

“You get bombed you can use the same on that person,” she said.

She was asked to explain why she later posted: “Now I understand why they were drowned. I didn’t know the other half of the story. Interesting book.”

Ms Smith replied: “I understand why they are telling me it happened but that doesn’t mean I agree.”

She said she was against all such videos posted by Isis at that time. “I felt disgusted. It’s absolutely disgusting and barbaric.”

She said she could not remember what the book was, but remembered it was something about people drowning in a cage. Gardaí pointed out that these conversations took place before Ms Smith travelled to Syria in 2015 and asked why would she go if she knew this was the “norm” in the Islamic State.

Ms Smith said her religion required her to go. She said videos like these did not negate that there was a caliphate and as a Muslim she felt obliged to travel there, to make “hijrah”. She said that for women the hijrah is your “jihad” as women are not allowed to fight.

Felt safe

She denied repeatedly that she went to Syria to fight. She said that when she first started living on the outskirts of Raqqa in 2016, about five months after travelling to Syria, she felt safe. She said it was the media that “propagated everything, but on a day-to-day basis you don’t see this”.

Det Sgt O’Connor said that earlier in the same interview Ms Smith said Carol Karimah Duffy, an Irish convert to Islam, had “radicalised” her.

She said she knew nothing about Islam before meeting Ms Duffy at a mosque in Dundalk eight years earlier. Ms Duffy, she said, taught her about Osama bin Laden and told her she had to quit her job with the Army because it was “haram” or forbidden by Islam.

When giving her evidence earlier in the trial, Ms Duffy denied teaching radical ideas to Ms Smith. She said that she taught Ms Smith about the Quran but the accused had rejected her teachings and interpreted what was said in the way she wanted to.

The trial continues.