Gargatuan volumes of material in the trial of former soldier Lisa Smith, are reportedly causing the printers of her defence team to crash the Special Criminal Court has heard.
Ms. Smith is accused of being a member of Isis and of financing terrorism.
The State has prepared a verbatim transcript of interviews that contains substantially more content for the defence to review.
Lengthy interview transcripts of over 1,000 pages each have added to already considerable disclosure causing huge difficulties when it came to downloading material.
Ms Smith, from Dundalk, is charged with an offence contrary to the Criminal Justice (Terrorist Offences) Act 2005 for being a member of unlawful terrorist group Islamic State (Isis) between October 28, 2015 and December 1, 2019.
She is also charged under the same legislation for financing terrorism by sending €800 in assistance, via a Western Union money transfer, to a named man on May 6, 2015.
Ms Smith’s barrister, Michael O’Higgins SC said:
“We’re getting files that are absolutely enormous and there are a whole host of different formats, and my solicitor is having very significant difficulty trying to line up all the players to download the material“.
“There are additional difficulties in trying to print copies of the material,” he said, adding that the defence’s printers “end up regularly crashing”. Counsel said that with some material “when you go to download it, it gives you a time measured in hours, but it never actually finishes – it cuts out“.
