Islamic State member Lisa Smith donated money to a jihadist with whom she later travelled to Syria

Alleged Islamic State member Lisa Smith donated money to a jihadist with whom she later travelled to Syria to ‘help the rebels’, the Special Criminal Court has heard.

This morning Tania Joya, who was radicalised after the 9/11 terror attacks, said she and her husband went to Syria in 2013 with an “excited” and “happy” Ms Smith.

She said the former soldier was respected for her military training and that she planned to ‘die a martyr’ during the country’s civil war.

Ms Smith (39), with an address in Dundalk, Co Louth, is on trial charged with membership of an unlawful terrorist group, the Islamic State (IS), between October 28, 2015, and December 1, 2019.

She is also accused of trying to finance terrorism by attempting to provide €800 in assistance, via a Western Union money transfer, to a named man on May 6, 2015, for the benefit of the same terror organisation.

The defendant has pleaded not guilty to both charges.

It is the prosecution’s case that she provided sustenance and vitality to IS in an act of allegiance to the terror group.

Today Tania Joya gave evidence that she and her jihadist husband began conversing with Lisa Smith online before travelling with her to Syria in 2013.

She said they had both become radicalised in their late teens shortly after the September 11 attacks, but that she eventually became less religious and de-radicalised.

Her husband John Gerogelas, an American convert and scholar of Islam, had set up an Facebook group called ‘We Hear, We Obey’ in 2011.

Source: Independent