British Activists Face Over 20 Years in Prison
Four British pro-Palestinian activists have been sentenced to more than 20 years in total after being convicted of criminal damage and causing over £1 million worth of damage at an Elbit Systems UK facility in Bristol. The raid, orchestrated by the banned group Palestine Action, took place two years ago during Israel’s bombardment of Gaza.
At Woolwich Crown Court, Charlotte Head, Samuel Corner, Leona Kamio, and Fatema Zainab Rajwani were found guilty of criminal damage. Corner was additionally convicted for inflicting grievous bodily harm after hitting a police officer with a sledgehammer. The activists had previously been acquitted of aggravated burglary.
Judge Jeremy Johnson deemed the terrorism connection an aggravating factor during sentencing but acknowledged their good character as mitigating factors. Corner received seven years and eight months, Kamio and Head were sentenced to five years, while Rajwani served four years and eight months.
The group Palestine Action was proscribed under terrorism law in 2024 following a High Court ruling that the decision was unlawful. Despite this, the group remains banned pending an appeal by the government.
Lawyers for the activists argue there is no basis for treating their convictions as terrorism. They claim they were motivated to destroy weapons to stop what they described as Israel’s “genocide” in Gaza and disavowed violence against people.
Amnesty International UK’s chief executive, Kerry Moscogiuri, stated that criminal damage has never been treated as terrorism within the UK justice system before and it is dangerous to treat them as the same thing. She emphasized that punishing protesters for criminal damage as if they were terrorists is disproportionate and could be a miscarriage of justice.