Palestine Action activists sentenced as terrorists

A British judge has sentenced four Palestine Action protesters as terrorists, handing them custodial sentences ranging from four to eight years.

The unprecedented ruling came despite jurors convicting them of criminal charges not connected to terrorism during prosecution.

Last month, jurors convicted Leona Kamio, Samuel Corner, Fatema Rajwani, and Charlotte Head of criminal damage in connection with a raid on an Elbit Systems UK plant near Bristol on 6 August 2024.

Two other activists, Jordan Devlin and Zoe Rogers, were cleared of the charges.

Elbit Systems is an Israeli arms manufacture whose Uk headquarters are based in Bristol.

On Friday, the presiding judge, Justice Jeremy Johnson, added a “terrorism connection” to their offences.

In a preliminary ruling in March 2025, Johnson found an “appearance “ of a terrorism connection in the case as he said the activists were attempting to influence the Israeli government by restricting their access to weapons. This information was withheld from the jury who convicted them.

This marks the first time in British legal history that the designation has been applied to direct action protesters who were not convicted of terrorist offences or of causing intentional violence.

Johnson said in his ruling that the determination was made on the basis that the defendants caused "serious property damage", with the intention of influencing the UK government and "intimidating a section of the public".

He added that those convicted acted "for the purpose of advancing a political and/or ideological cause".

Johnson said of his finding of the terrorism connection under section 69 of the Sentencing Act that he is "sure that each defendant’s offence of criminal damage involved serious damage to property, was designed to intimidate the UK government and a section of the public [Elbit employees and those of other businesses linked to Elbit] and was for the purpose of advancing a political or ideological cause".

Head and Kamio were handed six year custodial sentences, Rajwani five years and eight months and Corner a total sentence of eight years and eight months.

Defendants' families and supporters looked on tearfully from the gallery, cheering and banging on the glass partititon as the defendants left the dock. As she was led out Kamio quoted a line from Palestinian poet, Marwan Makhoul: "To hear the birds, the drones must be silent".

The court heard that days before the hearing the prosecution submitted evidence that factored into the judge’s assessment of the extent of the damage caused.

This evidence consisted of a report by an independent forensic consultant, which put the cost of damage caused by the defendants at just over £1.2m.

The report detailed damage to the “building infrastructure, IT systems, operational equipment, and ancillary assets”. This included around 40 "significant military assets".

Defence lawyers questioned the timing of the report’s submission, saying it was submitted at the “59th minute of the 11th hour”, noting that it postdated Elbit’s insurance claim, which was finalised in March.

Chief defence counsel Rajiv Menon KC questioned why “the court has received no explanation as to why there has been such delay".

"Why has the prosecution served it some 20 months after the action?” he asked. He noted that the timing gave the defence “no time to consider the statement and respond to it”.

He dismissed the report as being “full of hearsay and opinion”, noting that some of the costs it detailed related to damage done to parts of the factory the defendants had not entered.

Menon said that it would be “wholly wrong and unfair” for the judge to rely on this “highly contentious evidence” when determining the value of the damage caused.

Menon added that it would be "wholly unfair" for the court to reach any conclusions based on the defendants' motivations for the raid, given that the defendants were not allowed to rely on this as evidence during the trial.

"The Crown cannot have their cake and eat it," Menon said. "It can't exclude evidence on the one hand and somehow bring it through the back door for sentencing," adding that the move constituted an "aggregious breach of their right to a fair trial".

Meanwhile, hundreds of protestors gathered ousidet the court, with police reporting that over 100 people had been arrested for displaying signs in support of the proscribed group Palestine Action.