Court upholds ex-soldier Lisa Smith’s conviction for membership of Islamic State

Judge said there was no doubt circumstances of Smith’s voluntary travel to IS-controlled territory were 'properly to be regarded as being capable of constituting sufficient acts of participation'

In 2022, Lisa Smith  became the first person to be convicted in an Irish court of an Islamic terrorist offence committed abroad. File picture: Niall Carson/PA

The Court of Appeal has upheld former soldier Lisa Smith’s conviction for membership of the Islamic State.

Delivering judgment on behalf of the three-judge court on Tuesday, Mr Justice John Edwards said there was no doubt that the circumstances of Smith’s voluntary travel to Islamic State-controlled territory were “properly to be regarded as being capable of constituting sufficient acts of participation”.

“The establishment of membership did not require proof of combat, military activity, or operational acts such as fundraising, training, or dissemination of propaganda,” he said.

The court rejected all grounds raised by Smith and her appeal was therefore dismissed.

In 2022, Smith, aged 44, became the first person to be convicted in an Irish court of an Islamic terrorist offence committed abroad when the three-judge, non-jury Special Criminal Court found that she joined IS when she travelled to Syria in 2015.

Smith, from Dundalk, Co Louth, had pleaded not guilty to membership of an unlawful terrorist group  between October 28, 2015, and December 1, 2019.

Smith appealed her conviction after her bid to overturn her 15-month sentence was rejected by the Court of Appeal in 2023.

At her conviction appeal hearing last year, her senior counsel Michael O’Higgins argued that Smith had travelled to Syria through “a religious obligation” and had not carried out any acts as a member of Isis.