UK Court Convicts Four Palestine Action Activists Over 2024 Elbit Systems Bristol Raid

Four Palestine Action activists were convicted in the UK over a 2024 raid on an Israeli defense factory operated by Elbit Systems in Bristol. At Woolwich Crown Court, jurors found Charlotte Head, Samuel Corner, Leona Kamio and Fatema Rajwani guilty of criminal damage, after a prison van crashed into shutters at the Elbit Systems factory in the early hours of August 6, 2024. Prosecutor Deanna Heer KC said the raid was “meticulously organised” to cause maximum damage and obtain information about the company. The court heard the group caused an estimated £1 million of damage during the raid, and Corner was also found guilty of inflicting grievous bodily harm by a majority of 11 to one.

In parallel with the court case, L'Humanité reported that in the United Kingdom, 24 people were detained for a year following an action at an Israeli arms company's site in Filton, near Bristol, and that some had been on hunger strike for 52 days. L'Humanité said two were hospitalized on Friday, December 19, and Saturday, December 20, due to their detention conditions, and that Kamran Ahmed, 28, held at Pentonville Prison (London), was hospitalized on Saturday, December 20. It also said Amu Gib, 30, detained at Bronzefield Prison (Surrey), had not eaten for fifty days, and that Qesser Zuhrah was left on the floor in her cell with chest pains with no ambulance called for several hours. The lawyers representing the Palestine Action members said they risk dying without intervention from David Lammy, the Justice Secretary, who had refused to meet them, and L'Humanité described the news as “alarming” as health deteriorated “very quickly.”

The convictions set up sentencing on June 12 for the four found guilty of criminal damage, with the four also remanded into custody ahead of that date. The Times reported that Head, Corner, Kamio and Rajwani were each found guilty after a jury deliberated for more than 14 hours, while Zoe Rogers and Jordan Devlin were found not guilty of criminal damage. The Times also said Corner was convicted of inflicting grievous bodily harm against police sergeant Kate Evans, and that Evans was unable to return to work for three months after the spinal injury. In the same reporting stream, Sky News said the judge Mr Justice Johnson told jurors to ignore the ongoing legal battle over the government's ban of Palestine Action as a terrorist group, and it quoted the judge’s instruction that whether they “thought they had some moral justification is completely beside the point.”

“Four of six British pro-Palestinian activists have been convicted of criminal damage relating to a 2024 raid on a factory operated by Israeli defence firm Elbit, with one of the defendants found guilty of striking a police officer with a sledgehammer”

Al Jazeera