Former Defence Forces soldier Lisa Smith married a member of al Qaida and stayed in a “bombed-out” house where militia and rebels held meetings when she was in Syria, her trial has heard.

The Co Louth woman, 39, has pleaded not guilty to charges of membership of the illegal organisation, the so-called Islamic State, and of providing funds to benefit the group.

Giving evidence on Thursday, Tanya Joya told the Special Criminal Court that she and her then-husband John Georgealis had met the accused through his Islamic Facebook group We Hear, We Obey.

Ms Joya, originally from London, was born a Muslim and said she had become “radicalised” after the September 11 terror attacks in 2001.

She met Mr Georgealis, a US man who converted to Islam, online and the pair subsequently married, and travelled to numerous Muslim countries.

They met Smith in Turkey in 2013, but crossed the border into Syria when they were unable to find housing due to an influx of refugees into the country.

Ms Joya told the court that Ms Smith was “excited” to be in Syria, and that she had told her she was planning to die there and become a martyr.

She told the court she was initially happy to meet Smith because she “seemed nice” and was able to help her with her four children.

But she said that shortly after Smith arrived in Turkey “it got a bit ugly”.

She said: “She wanted to go to Syria.

“All Muslims felt an obligation to help the rebels, because they were being oppressed.

“They were brainwashed into thinking if you became a martyr you get to go to paradise.

“Who wouldn’t want that?”

Ms Joya said they had respected Smith “because she had training in the army”, and “she wanted to hep the rebels”.

She added: “Lisa Marie wanted to go to Syria.

“She was determined, it was her goal.

“I was opposed to it because I was afraid.

“I didn’t want to go into a war-zone with my kids.”

The court heard that while Ms Joya was fearful about the war, her husband and Smith would “crack jokes about how close we were to Syria”.

She said the trip “wasn’t planned”, but because they were unable to get housing in Turkey they had taken an overnight bus into Syria.

“John promised it was only for a couple of weeks. We stayed in a building that was bombed out, it was owned by a Syrian general,” she said.

Ms Joya said the house had no electricity, the windows had been smashed, there were bullet holes in the walls and that it was “very dirty”.

She added: “It was where the militia, the rebels had meetings.

“People entering the country would stay there.”

She said they had stayed there for one week, before they went to stay “with a really fanatical Syrian women” at another location.

It was here that Smith met a Tunisian man named Ahmed, a member of al Qaida, who she wanted to marry.

Ms Joya told the court that she had advised Smith to marry for her own protection.

However, she said she was opposed to her marrying Ahmed because they did not know each other or speak the same language.

“I didn’t like it that Lisa Marie wanted to marry Ahmed.

“I thought it was batsh*t crazy” she said.

She said of Smith that “everyone loved her”, while Ahmed was “handsome and charming.”

Asked why she thought Smith wanted to marry him, Ms Joya replied: “Because he was hot, that’s why.

“And he was a fighter.”

“She didn’t know him, but he had a cute smile and he was very shy,” she added.

Ms Joya told the court the pair got married in Syria, but that she had refused to attend.

“She knew I thought it was ridiculous. She didn’t care. To her I wasn’t a good Muslim, and I wasn’t. I didn’t want to be a Muslim,” she said.

Ms Joya told the court that around this time she got her hands on a “burner” mobile phone, called her husband’s mother and told her to report him to the FBI.

She made plans to leave Syria and Smith asked her if she planned to tell the authorities about her.

“I said yes, I had to,” Ms Joya told the court.

“She just shrugged.

“She didn’t argue with me.

“She knew I was going to do what I had to do.”

She said Smith had blocked her on Facebook after that conversation.

She said the accused stayed in Syria when she made her journey back to the UK, and then to the US.

“She (Smith) was not going to leave. It was never her intention to leave. I didn’t care.

“It was like, good riddance. I just wanted to look after my kids,” she said.

Ms Joya told told the court she believed Smith had been “indoctrinated”.

“She was told what to think.

“She obeyed because she believed in God” she added.

The case received widespread attention in 2019 when it emerged that Smith, a former Air Corps soldier who had worked on the Government jet, had been detained in Syria over alleged links to IS.

Smith was arrested at Dublin Airport in 2019 on suspicion of terrorist offences after returning from Turkey in November with her young daughter.

She had travelled to Syria a number of years ago after she converted to Islam.

Smith is charged under Section Six of the Criminal Justice (Terrorist Offences) Act 2005 which makes it an offence to join a foreign unlawful organisation.

It is alleged that between October 28 2015 and December 1 2019 at a location outside the State, she was a member of a terrorist group styling itself as the Islamic State.

She has also been accused of financing terrorism by sending 800 euro (£670) in assistance by Western Union money transfer to a named individual in 2015.

The trial will resume at 10.30 am on Friday.

Images recovered from the home of the older brother of Manchester Arena bomber Salman Abedi indicated he was “sympathetic to the ideals of Isis”, a police chief has told a public inquiry.

Ismail Abedi, 27, was arrested the morning after the explosion which killed 22 people and injured hundreds at the end of an Ariana Grande concert on May 22 2017.

A search of his home recovered a disk drive containing a number of images that could be “considered supportive of an extremist mindset”, said Detective Chief Superintendent Simon Barraclough, the senior investigating officer into the attack.

He said images of burnt bodies and one depicting an Isis flag with the words “I Pledge Allegiance” were on the device.

Other images showed Ismail and a young Salman Abedi holding weapons – assessed to have been taken outside of the UK – and a video lecture from the late preacher and senior al Qaida recruiter Anwar al-Awlaki, the inquiry heard.

Another drive seized contained images of an armed Salman Abedi in camouflage clothing and a video file of his younger brother and other males firing weapons.

Paul Greaney QC, counsel to the inquiry, asked Mr Barraclough: “Your view in your statement was ‘there are indications that Ismail Abedi may have been aware of the radicalisation or changing opinions of Salman Abedi’?”

“Yes,” said the detective.

Mr Greaney went on: “And you added ‘in some respects it also appears that Ismail was sympathetic to the ideals of Isis as evidenced by the material discovered on his devices which were seized from his home address when he was arrested’?”

Mr Barraclough confirmed: “Yes.”

Mr Greaney said Ismail Abedi would be called to give evidence and would have the chance to offer explanations, although when the inquiry was opened it was said he had declined to answer questions on the basis it may tend to incriminate him.

The inquiry into the bombing heard Ismail Abedi was held in custody until June 5 2017 on suspicion of the commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism and was interviewed on 25 occasions.

The inquiry heard he told police he had concerns about Salman Abedi and their younger brother, Hashem – jailed for life this year for his part in the bomb plot – over them dropping out of their studies, had suspicions they were involved in fraud and members of the community had told him Hashem was taking drugs.

He raised those issues with their parents, Ramadan and Samia, who live in Libya, which caused “friction” with his brothers who he said changed phone numbers frequently and when he did contact them they would hang up, the inquiry heard.

Ismail Abedi went on to provide a prepared statement in which he denied any knowledge or involvement in his brother’s actions or in the radicalisation or assistance of Salman Abedi in relation to the attack, Manchester Manchester Magistrates’ Court was told.

Mr Barraclough confirmed Ismail Abedi was released without charge but he added: “You must understand that the investigation continues in relation to this and there will be further attempts by the investigation team to speak to Ismail Abedi in due course.”

Salman Abedi travelled to Libya during the 2011 revolution and obtained a job “locating Gaddafi supporters”, the inquiry heard.

His cousin, Abdurrahman Forjani, told police that Abedi had been “involved in raids during that period” and explained he had shown him photographs of military vehicles, weapons and rocket launchers.

When Abedi returned to the UK about nine months later in 2012, his cousin said he was told by his parents to stay away from him.

The inquiry also heard about Abedi’s link to a counter-terror investigation into a woman who was stopped from flying out of the UK from Heathrow Airport in February 2017.

Her home was searched and among photographs found on a device was one of a male with a strong resemblance to Abedi carrying a rifle and an insignia of Libyan Islamist militia group the February 17th Martyrs Brigade behind him on a wall. The likeness, established after the Arena attack, was said to be “startling” and the image was uploaded in August 2011 when Abedi was aged 16.

Images of Salman Abedi and his younger brother, Hashem, in military uniform, also taken in 2011, were found at their home in Fallowfield following the bombing.

Mr Barraclough said it indicated the two brothers did receive some level of military training and he also it was “not unreasonable” to suggest that Salman Abedi may have either fought with the February 17th Martyrs Brigade during the Libyan uprising or attended a training camp, or both.

Read more: Manchester bomb-plotter held in jail with extremism separation unit

Five people including an assailant have died and 17 others are wounded after a shooting in the heart of Vienna hours before a coronavirus lockdown started, Austrian authorities said.

The dead attacker was a 20-year-old Austrian-North Macedonian dual national who had a previous terror conviction.

Two men and two women died from their injuries after the attack on Monday evening, Chancellor Sebastian Kurz said. The suspected attacker was shot and killed by police.

Vienna’s hospital service said seven people are in life-threatening condition after the attack, the Austrian news agency APA reported. In total, 17 people are being treated in hospital, with gunshot wounds and cuts.

“It is now confirmed that yesterday’s attack was clearly an Islamist terror attack,” Mr Kurz said. “It was an attack out of hatred — hatred for our fundamental values, hatred for our way of life, hatred for our democracy in which all people have equal rights and dignity.”

Interior minister Karl Nehammer later said that the dead assailant, who had roots in the Balkan nation of North Macedonia, had a previous conviction under a law that punishes membership of terrorist organisations.

The attacker, named as Kujtim Fejzulai, was sentenced to 22 months in prison in April 2019 because he had tried to travel to Syria to join the so-called Islamic State group. He was granted early release in December under juvenile law.

Fifteen house searches have taken place and several people have been arrested, Mr Nehammer said, adding that the attacker “was equipped with a fake explosive vest and and an automatic rifle, a handgun and a machete to carry out this repugnant attack on innocent citizens”.

Authorities are still trying to determine whether further attackers are on the run. People in Vienna were urged to stay at home if possible on Tuesday and children did not have to go to school. Some 1,000 police officers were on duty in Vienna on Tuesday morning.

Among those wounded in the attack was a police officer, said Mr Nehammer. The 28-year-old was in hospital but was no longer in a life-threatening condition.

The shooting began shortly after 8pm on Monday near Vienna’s main synagogue as many people were enjoying a last night of open restaurants and bars before a month-long coronavirus lockdown, which started at midnight.

Vienna police chief Gerhard Puerstl said the attacker was killed at 8.09pm.

Mr Kurz said: “We are victims of a despicable terror attack in the federal capital.”

His government on Tuesday ordered three days of official mourning, with flags on public buildings to be flown at half-mast until Thursday.

Unverified footage posted on social media showed a gunman walking through the streets, apparently shooting at people at random, wounding several.

Rabbi Schlomo Hofmeister said he saw at least one person shoot at people sitting outside at bars in the street below his window near the city’s main synagogue.

“They were shooting at least 100 rounds just outside our building,” he said. “All these bars have tables outside. This evening is the last evening before the lockdown.”

Authorities said residents have uploaded 20,000 videos of the attack to police.

Read more: Suspect in French beheading horror was Chechen teenager

New arrest by French investigators probing church attack in Nice

The parents of a Muslim convert dubbed Jihadi Jack are facing jail after being found guilty of funding terrorism.

Organic farmer John Letts, 58, and former Oxfam fundraising officer Sally Lane, 57, refused to believe their 18-year-old son Jack had become a dangerous extremist when they allowed him to travel, the Old Bailey heard.

They ignored repeated warnings he had joined Islamic State in Syria and sent – or tried to send – a total of £1,723 for him despite being told by police three times not to.

Prosecutor Alison Morgan QC said the couple, from Oxford, “turned a blind eye to the obvious” – that their son had joined the murderous terrorist group by the time they sent £223 in September 2015.

The defendants claimed their son, who suffers from obsessive compulsive disorder, was trapped in Raqqa and by December 2015 when they tried to send more funds, they were acting under “duress” fearing he was in mortal danger.

A jury deliberated for nearly 20 hours to find the defendants guilty of one charge of funding terrorism in in September 2015 but not guilty of the same charge in December 2015.

Jurors were discharged after they were unable to decide on a third charge relating to an attempt to send money in January 2016.

Prosecutor Alison Morgan QC said the Crown would not seek a retrial and asked for the charge to lie on file.

There were gasps in the public gallery but defendants made no reaction in the dock.

The court had heard how Jack Letts left the family home in May 2014 and embarked on what his parents saw as a “grand adventure” to learn Arabic in Jordan.

Before his departure, a friend of the teenager had tried to warn his parents about his growing extremism and urged them to confiscate his passport.

From Jordan, Jack Letts moved to Kuwait and married Asmaa, the daughter of a tribal elder, in Iraq before travelling on to Syria.

Lane told jurors she was “horrified” when he rang her to say he was in Syria in September 2014.

She said: “I screamed at him, ‘How could you be so stupid? You will get killed. You will be beheaded’.”

John Letts begged his son to come home, telling him: “A father should never live to see his son buried.”

He went on to accuse him of being a “pawn … helping spread hatred, pain, anger, suffering and violence”, jurors heard.

In early 2015, police raided the family home and warned the defendants not to send any property or money to their son.

Jack Letts ranted about it to his parents, saying police would “die in your rage”.

In July 2015, he posted on Facebook that he would like to perform a “martyrdom operation” on a group of British soldiers, and threatened to behead his old school friend Linus Doubtfire, who had joined the Army.

When challenged by his parents, he said: “I would happily kill each and every one of Linus Unit personally… I honestly want to cut Linus head off.”

Ms Morgan said it was “ridiculous” to claim the message had been posted by someone else using Jack Letts’s account, because he even knew the name of the family cat.

At the time, Lane conceded in a message to her son it was “naive of us to believe” he was not a fighter.

The defendants also consulted an academic expert who told them it was “highly improbable” that Jack Letts had not engaged in military activity, the court heard.

In spite of the mounting evidence,  Lane sent £223 after Jack Letts gave her his word the money would have “nothing to do with jihad”.

Police followed up with a second warning, telling Lane that “sending money to Jack is the same as sending money to Isis”.

But in December 2015, Jack Letts began indicating he would like to leave Syria and told of a “big misguidance in the state”.

John Letts told a family liaison officer that Jack Letts was “desperate to get out” and in “danger”, and was advised he could send him money to leave.

The advice was quickly corrected and the defendants were issued with a written notice stating: “The police do not endorse or authorise the sending of any monies to Jack Letts.”

Lane told her son: “We know you are in danger so we feel we have no choice but to help you and send it.”

But when she asked him to spell out the danger he was in, Jack Letts responded: “Define danger.”

She went on to attempt two money transfers which were blocked, and the defendants were arrested.

John Letts declined to give evidence, but his barrister Henry Blaxland QC told jurors the prosecution was “inhumane to the point of being cruel”.

He said: “These parents have to all intents and purposes lost their son. They are having to deal with the trauma.”

The jury was not told that father-of-one Jack Letts, now aged 23, is being held by Kurdish authorities in northern Syria accused of being a member of IS.

Detective Chief Superintendent Kath Barnes said the conviction sends a clear message, adding: “It’s not for us to choose which laws to follow and which not to and when it’s OK to break the law.”

She said investigators had a “huge empathy” for the Letts family, adding: “Fundamentally John Letts and Sally Lane are not bad people.

“It’s hard to imagine the kind of agony they must be going through because of the choices their son made.”

Banning all Islamic State terrorists from returning to the UK would “remove a substantial burden” from police forces, ministers have been told.

Conservative MP Luke Hall (Thornbury and Yate) argued that the public is concerned that countries were taking “too lax an attitude in dealing with extremism”.

He said signatories to a petition calling for a ban on foreign fighters returning to the UK were concerned an environment existed where “people feel able to join terrorist groups without any retribution”.

His comments were made in a Westminster Hall debate triggered by the online petition that called on the Government to “ban all Isis members from returning to UK”.

More than 580,000 people have signed the petition, with 100,000 needed for it to be considered for debate in Parliament.

The debate comes after Islamic State bride Shamima Begum was stripped of her citizenship by Home Secretary Sajid Javid after she was found in a Syrian refugee camp.

Mr Hall said: “There are also a number of people who have signed this petition who feel that at the point that foreign fighters come to the realisation that the area they have travelled to is not the utopia which they had anticipated, they feel freely able to return to their old lives in Britain without being prosecuted.

“And taking a strong line in denying these people the right to return to the UK at all would remove a substantial burden from our police force who are required to spend time and resource in response to terrorism-related incidents and that they time could be better used on other issues.”

During the debate MPs also argued that Ms Begum should be returned to the UK as part of efforts to prosecute British citizens who join terrorist organisations abroad.

Shadow home secretary Diane Abbott said Ms Begum should be “brought home, questioned, interrogated and put on trial if that was the right thing to do”.

Ms Abbott warned that stripping British citizenship from people with dual nationalities could be “potentially counter-productive”.

Independent MP John Woodcock (Barrow and Furness) said “I think it is deeply alarming that it seems possible that there is not sufficient evidence to try her.”

He argued Ms Begum was “our problem to sort out” and MPs need to be careful what message they were sending out to other British citizens.

Mr Hall said the Government should retain the option of stripping citizenship from foreign fighters but highlighted the circumstances of each case were different and there was no “catch-all solution”.

He called on the Government to explain what action it was taking to build cases against and prosecute foreign fighters.

Mr Hall told MPs that according to the Home Secretary, around 900 people of concern to national security had travelled to Syria and Iraq.

Of these around 20% had been killed, 40% remained in the region and 40% had returned to the UK.

More than 100 people had been deprived of their citizenship, he added.

Ms Begum, from Bethnal Green, who left the UK for Syria aged 15, previously said she wanted to return to the UK for the sake of her newborn baby boy.

Mr Javid later rejected suggestions he was responsible for three-week-old Jarrah’s death after the baby caught pneumonia in the refugee camp.

The man nicknamed Jihadi Jack has said that he wants to return to Britain, but he thinks it unlikely he will be allowed back.

Jack Letts, 23, speaking from the Kurdish jail where he has been held for two years on suspicion of joining IS after he ran away to Syria in 2014, said he missed his mum, pasties, and Doctor Who.

He told ITV News: “I feel British, I am British.

“If the UK accepted me I would go back to the UK, but I don’t think that’s going to happen.”

Born in Oxford, the Muslim convert also has a Canadian passport thanks to his father’s nationality, but admitted: “I don’t know if that will still be valid.”

He told the broadcaster that he had lived on “the Oxford Street of Raqqa”, and married an Iraqi woman who has given birth to the couple’s son.

Mr Letts, a former pupil of Cherwell School, also confessed that he was pleased when he first heard news of the Paris terror attacks in 2015, and blamed his reaction on his experiences of coalition airstrikes in Raqqa.

He said when asked about the Bataclan atrocities: “At the time, I thought it was a good thing.

“At the time we had this idea, living in Raqqa, getting bombed every five minutes by coalition jets. I’ve seen children burnt alive.

“You have this idea of ‘why shouldn’t it happen to them?'”

But he claimed he has since had a change of heart, and sympathy for the innocent people killed, as he “realised that they had nothing to do with it”.

The Home Office said: “In recent days the Home Secretary has clearly stated that his priority is the safety and security of Britain and the people who live here.

“In order to protect this country, he has the power to deprive someone of their British citizenship where it would not render them stateless.

“We do not comment on individual cases, but any decisions to deprive individuals of their citizenship are based on all available evidence and not taken lightly.”

Mr Letts, who was a teenager when he fled to Syria, has not seen his parents in half a decade, and is missing some elements of his life in the UK.

He added: “I miss people mostly, I miss my mum. Five years I haven’t seen my mum, two years I haven’t spoken to my mum.

“I miss pasties. And Doctor Who.”

Mr Letts’ parents, John Letts and Sally Lane, from Chilswell Road, Oxford, are awaiting trial in the UK accused of sending money to their son.

They have denied three charges of funding terrorism.

This is not the first time Mr Letts has spoken to the British media since he fled his home.

In 2016, he told Channel 4 News that he missed Krispy Kreme doughnuts and kebabs, and had narrowly survived an airstrike with just a “scratch”.

And when asked if he was an IS fighter, he replied “Currently I’m not” before saying later in a statement that he opposes the militant group.

Mr Letts’ interview comes the day after the family of Islamic State bride Shamima Begum confirmed they would be challenging the Home Office’s decision to revoke the 19-year-old’s British citizenship.

Ms Begum was one of three schoolgirls to leave Bethnal Green to join the terror cult in 2015 and recently gave birth to a baby boy, her third child.

They said in a letter to the Home Secretary on Thursday: “We must, therefore, assist Shamima in challenging your decision to take away the one thing that is her only hope at rehabilitation, her British citizenship.”

The “naive” brother of a 16-year-old jihadi bride has been found guilty of funding Islamic State in Syria.

Salim Wakil, 25, from Fleet, Hampshire, arranged the transfer of 3,000 dollars via Western Union for his sister Sumaiyyah in February last year, the Old Bailey heard.

Prosecutor Brett Weaver said: “The arrangement was made despite repeated warning from the police that any such transfer of funds to Syria could lead to him committing a criminal offence.”

He used a friend’s name in the transaction in a “deliberate attempt by the defendant to conceal his actions, demonstrating he knew perfectly well what he was doing was wrong”, the prosecutor said.

The defendant claimed he only sent the funds to help his younger sibling to return to family in Britain, even though she had married and given birth to a daughter in Raqqa, the court was told.

Wakil had lived with his parents and nine younger siblings at the family home in Fleet, including Sumaiyyah, who is now 21, the court heard.

In August 2014, aged just 16, Sumaiyyah left home and travelled to Syria, leaving behind a letter explaining her reasons for joining IS and asking her family not to tell police.

Police did not find out until the following year and the Prevent deradicalisation programme was called in.

An investigation revealed the teenager had maintained contact with her family via Skype calls and WhatsApp as well as other text communications.

During the chats, Sumaiyyah described wanting to become a martyr and talked of her husband and pregnancy, jurors heard.

While in Syria, she had married 19-year-old Abu Dujana – real name Mehdi Hassan – from Portsmouth who was killed fighting in the autumn of 2014. But Wakil repeatedly encouraged his sister to come back to Britain.

When she asked to see photographs of her younger siblings, Wakil replied: “U come see them thanks.” Wakil denied entering into a funding arrangement but was found guilty by the Old Bailey jury.

Judge Rebecca Poulet QC said she had “no doubt this defendant was naive” and was not supportive of IS himself. She said he “foolishly and wrongly” took the risk of sending money because he was “genuinely feeling concerned for the safety of his sister”.

The judge asked for a pre-sentence report and adjourned sentencing until February 8. She told the defendant: “You are now convicted of this offence on very clear evidence.

“You must understand that in putting this matter back for a pre-sentence report to find out more about you and your present situation that is in no sense a promise or suggestion that you will not immediately go back to prison.”

Detective Chief Superintendent Kath Barnes, head of Counter Terrorism Policing South East, said: “Salim Wakil was manipulated by his sister into sending money to her, which could very easily be used for terrorism purposes.

“The law intends to cut off funding to terrorist groups and to stop money falling into the hands of people who may use it for terrorist purposes.

“By making the decision to send money and ignoring the advice of the police, Salim Wakil broke the law.

“The law applies equally to everyone, regardless of their motives, and is here to stop the funding of terrorist organisations and individuals.

“No-one has the permission to take the law into their own hands, no matter how emotional the reasoning is for doing so.”

Convicted criminal Anjem Choudary who was found guilty of telling British citizens to join ISIS, is to be released this week. He will be living in a tax-payer funded safe house in North London and we have learnt that he will be living within reach of his wife and family, so that his human rights are not infringed.

Yet, this very man has never cared about the human rights of others. He has been the poisonous inspiration for young men who have gone on to murder and maim others and his decades of  Islamist agitation have caused enormous tensions and further fuelled far right activism, as some people thought that his views represented all Muslims. They clearly did not.

Just a few days ago, former EDL member, Ivan Humble made clear on a Newsnight interview about child grooming and the rise of the far right, that he was inspired to join the English Defence League since he believed that Anjem Choudary reflected the views of Muslims in general.

Choudary has used the legal and democratic process, to circumvent arrest for years and is now in the process of being released half-way through his sentence. Granted, he is under severe and restrictive conditions but the Government’s inability to stop his release, raises many questions. Why for example, is he being released half-way through his sentence? On what basis is this being done and does the Government realise that his early release is a gift for Islamist and far right groups. Both will use this opportunity, with Islamist extremists suggesting that Choudary has resisted the Government and ‘stood up against them’, whilst far right extremist groups will once again, make out that the Government is not working for the general public’s safety and that the Government is in cahoots with Muslims. This will be their narrative.

This whole affair leaves a foul taste in the mouth. How can a man who has been a driver for Islamist extremism be released half-way through his sentence? His actions have been a national security threat, yet he will now live in London, enjoying access to his family and living at the tax-payers expense.

If we are to send out a message to extremists that they will be given no quarter to spread their poison, the release of Choudary makes a mockery of this. This whole affair has shown how weak we are when many Muslims themselves, do not want this man released until he serves his whole sentence.

Denis Mukwege, a doctor who helps victims of sexual violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Nadia Murad, a Yazidi rights activist and survivor of sexual slavery by Islamic State, won the 2018 Nobel Peace Prize on Friday.

They were honoured for their efforts to end the use of sexual violence as a weapon of war, the Norwegian Nobel Committee said.

“Denis Mukwege is the helper who has devoted his life to defending these victims. Nadia Murad is the witness who tells of the abuses perpetrated against herself and others,” the Committee said in its citation.

“Each of them in their own way has helped to give greater visibility to war-time sexual violence, so that the perpetrators can be held accountable for their actions.”

Mukwege heads the Panzi Hospital in the eastern Congo city of Bukavu. The clinic receives thousands of women each year, many of them requiring surgery from sexual violence.

Murad is an advocate for the Yazidi minority in Iraq and for refugee and women’s rights in general. She was enslaved and raped by Islamic State fighters in Mosul, Iraq, in 2014.

“Rape in war has been a crime for centuries. But it was a crime in the shadows. The two laureates have both shone a light on it,” Dan Smith, Director of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), told Reuters.

Mukwege, a past winner of the United Nations Human Rights Prize and the European Parliament’s Sakharov Prize, dedicated his Nobel award to all women affected by rape and sexual violence.

He has performed surgery on scores of women after they had been raped by armed men, and campaigned to highlight their plight. He also provides HIV/AIDS treatment as well as free maternal care.

Although the Second Congo War, which killed more than five million people, formally ended in 2003, violence remains rampant, with militias frequently targeting civilians.

The Panzi Hospital has also been the target of threats, and in 2012 Mukwege’s home was invaded by armed men who held his daughters at gunpoint, shot at him and killed his bodyguard.

Shortly before that attack, he had denounced mass rape in the Democratic Republic of Congo and impunity for it in a speech at the United Nations.

“He has risked his life to help women survive atrocity,” said SIPRI’s Smith.

Mukwege was in the operation room when he was told the news.

Later, speaking at a news conference at the hospital, he said the prize was an important recognition of many women’s trauma.

“Dear survivors all over the world, I would like to tell you that through this prize, the world is listening to you and rejects indifference, the world refuses to stand idly by in the face of your suffering,” he said.

Wivine Moleka, a member of Congo’s ruling PPRD party, said Mukwege was more than just a doctor.

“He is a humanist who has taken the pain of women into consideration, pain in their flesh and in their soul. The prize sends a strong signal to everyone about these women who are raped every day,” she said.

SURVIVAL

Murad said she shared the award “with all Yazidis with all the Iraqis, Kurds and all the minorities and all survivors of sexual violence around the world”.

“For myself, I think of my mother, who was murdered by Daesh,” she said said in a statement to Reuters, using an Arabic term for Islamic State.

Murad was 21-years-old in 2014 when Islamic State militants attacked the village where she had grown up in northern Iraq. The militants killed those who refused to convert to Islam, including six of her brothers and her mother.

Along with many of the other young women in her village, she was taken into captivity by the militants, and sold repeatedly for sex as part of Islamic State’s slave trade.

She escaped captivity with the help of a Sunni Muslim family in Mosul, then IS’s de facto capital in Iraq, and became an advocate for the rights of her community around the world.

In 2017, Murad published a memoir of her ordeal, “The Last Girl”. She recounted in harrowing detail her months in captivity, her escape and her journey to activism.

“At some point, there was rape and nothing else. This becomes your normal day,” she wrote.

The United Nations has called the assaults launched by the Sunni militants against the religious minority in northern Iraq a campaign of genocide.

Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi congratulated her on the award, and Vian Dakhil, a Yazidi member of Iraq’s parliament, said: “It is the victory of good and peace over the forces of darkness.”

Murad, who is also a Sakharov Prize winner, is the second youngest Nobel Prize laureate after Malala Yousafzai.

SPEAK UP

The award follows a year in which the abuse and mistreatment of women in all walks of life across the globe has been a focus of attention.

Asked whether the #metoo movement, a prominent women’s rights activist forum, was an inspiration for this year’s prize, Nobel Committee Chairwoman Berit Reiss-Andersen said: “Metoo and war crimes are not quite the same. But they have in common that they see the suffering of women, the abuse of women and that it is important that women leave the concept of shame behind and speak up.”

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said the award was part of a growing movement to recognize the violence and injustice faced by women.

“Let us honour these new Nobel laureates by standing up for victims of sexual violence everywhere,” he said in a statement.

The prize will be presented in Oslo on Dec. 10, the anniversary of the death of Swedish industrialist Alfred Nobel, who founded the awards in his 1895 will.

Two suicide bombers attacked a packed Christian church in Quetta, capital of Baluchistan province, in south-western Pakistan on Sunday (December 17), killing at least nine people and wounding up to 56, officials said.

CCTV footage released by the police showed the attackers, both carrying guns, at the church gates. One climbed over the gate and let the other one into the compound. The footage showed people sitting at tables outside the church running from the scene.

Police guards stationed at the church entrance and on its roof killed one of the bombers but the second attacker detonated his explosives-filled vest outside the prayer hall just after Sunday services began, said Sarfraz Bugti, the provincial home minister.

Baluchistan police chief Moazzam Jah said there were nearly 400 worshippers in the church for the pre-Christmas service. The death toll could have been much higher if the gunmen had forced their way into the sanctuary, he said.

Jah said the venue – Bethel Memorial Methodist Church – was on high alert as Christian places of worship are often targeted by Islamist extremists over the Christmas season.

Islamic State claimed the attack, the group’s Amaq news agency said in an online statement, without providing any evidence for its claim.

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