Jailed Irish mother planned to raise children under ISIS, British court says

Chiqui Guyjoco Thursday, May 26, 2016

Iraqi security forces hold an Islamist State flag which they pulled down at the University of Anbar, in Anbar province July 26, 2015. | REUTERS/STRINGER

An Irish mother of three young children was sentenced by a British court to two and a half years imprisonment before she could pursue her plans of raising her children, including an 11-month-old baby, under the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS).

Old Bailey Judge Charles Wide said that Lorna Moore, a resident of Walsall, West Midlands, has a "very strong character" and that the Muslim convert "knew perfectly well of [her] husband's dedication to terrorism." Moore also failed to tell authorities about her husband's departure for Syria.

Moore's husband, 34-year-old Sajid Aslam, was one of the 12 ISIS sympathizers from Walsall that heeded the militants' call for volunteers and left for Syria in 2014, according to BBC.

"One of the troubling things about you is your facility for telling lies," Wide told the 34-year-old Moore, according to official reports.

In a report by Irish Times, Moore claimed that she's no longer in a relationship with her husband who already became abusive and only lived with him for the sake of the children. She also told the jurors that she asked for divorce but a Muslim cleric advised her otherwise.

Moore's father, Noel, believes his daughter's statements.

"It was a miscarriage of justice, it couldn't be anything else, my daughter didn't know where the man was going," he told BBC. "I think the whole thing's rubbish from start to finish. Somebody's been accused of something they didn't do and getting two and a half years in jail for it."

"She didn't know that the man was going to go away. He didn't come back home after a week of holidays," he insisted.

Along with Moore, 28-year-old Ayman Shaukat of Pargeter Street, Walsall, was also convicted for helping Aslam in his terrorist acts and was sentenced to 10 years imprisonment with a five-year extended license. Shaukat reportedly had dropped off Aslam at the airport and kept contact with him.

Another Walsall convicted was Alex Nash, a 22-year-old Muslim convert who traveled to Syria with Aslam. He was sentenced to five years imprisonment with a one-year additional license. Nash was arrested and deported along with his pregnant wife by Turkish authorities and admitted to the charges while taking sole responsibility.