UK convicts four Palestine Action activists over break-in at Israeli firm

Members of the now-banned Palestine Action group raided Elbit Methods’ facility in Bristol 10 months into Israel’s genocidal warfare on Gaza.

Four of six British pro-Palestinian activists have been convicted of prison injury regarding a 2024 raid on a manufacturing unit operated by Israeli defence firm Elbit, with one of many defendants discovered responsible of hanging a police officer with a sledgehammer.

London’s Woolwich Crown Court docket on Tuesday discovered Charlotte Head, 30, Samuel Nook, 23, Leona Kamio, 30, Fatema Zainab Rajwani, 21, responsible. Zoe Rogers, 22, and Jordan Devlin, 31, have been discovered not responsible.

Prosecutors mentioned that the six defendants have been members of the banned group Palestine Action, which organised the assault on the Elbit Methods UK facility in Bristol, southwest England, in August 2024.

The raid, which prosecutors mentioned brought about about a million kilos ($1.36m) of harm, happened about 10 months into Israel’s genocidal warfare on Gaza that started in October 2023.

Palestine Action was later proscribed underneath “terrorism” legislation, a call which was dominated illegal by London’s Excessive Court docket, although the group stays banned pending the federal government’s attraction, which was heard final week.

Acquitted of aggravated housebreaking

Nook, who prosecutors mentioned struck a police officer with a sledgehammer, was convicted of inflicting grievous bodily hurt.

Every of the defendants gave proof in entrance of the jury, admitting that they broken Israeli navy drones and tools inside Elbit’s analysis and improvement facility in Filton, Bristol – to be able to “save lives in Palestine”, in response to an announcement by their legal professionals.

The defence staff of the defendants mentioned in an announcement: “The defendants already defeated essentially the most critical costs” and “they went into this trial with their heads held excessive and with the information that regardless of the decision, by destroying Israeli navy drones, their motion probably saved lives in Palestine”.

Tuesday’s verdicts comply with an earlier trial, after which all six defendants have been acquitted of aggravated housebreaking, and the earlier jury couldn’t attain verdicts on the prison injury costs.

Prosecutors later dropped costs of violent dysfunction in opposition to all six defendants.

The UK authorities proscribed Palestine Action in July, days after its activists sneaked into an air power base in southern England.

Elbit Methods is a defence know-how firm with about 20,000 employees and revenues of $2bn, in response to the firm’s web site.