'Terrorism' ruling for Palestine activists 'unfair'

2 hours ago

Andy Gilland

Jonny Humphries,North West

News image — Five Palestine Action activists hurled red paint and damaged windows at a Barclays bank in Burnley

BBC The outside of a bank building, which has a white sign with the word 'Barclays' in blue lettering. Red paint has been splashed over the signage and cracks are visible i the window — Five Palestine Action activists hurled red paint and damaged windows at a Barclays bank in Burnley

A judge's decision to consider sentencing five Palestine Action activists as terrorists after causing damage to a bank is "unfair", a senior civil liberties lawyer has argued.

The defendants were convicted of criminal damage by a jury after covering a branch of Barclay's Bank in Burnley, Lancashire, with red paint and splintering windows on 5 August 2024.

After the verdicts Judge Philip Parry invited submissions from the prosecution and defence as to whether there was a "terrorist connection" in the case, a suggestion not made to the jury.

The government's independent advisor on terrorism legislation, Jonathan Hall KC, said judges are entitled to make such decisions in English criminal cases.

At the time of the offences, which caused more than £200,000 worth of damage, Palestine Action had not yet been proscribed as a terrorist organisation and it was not illegal to be a member of or support the pressure group.

The group said it had targeted Barclays due to the bank's then links to a company called Elbit, which it said had sold military components to Israel which were used in the conflict in Gaza.

Brendon O'Hagan, 28, Amanda Kelly, 31, Hmeera Atiqnisar, 31, Mohammed Malik, 28, and Alma Yaniv, 70, said they had no idea their case could be treated as terrorism until after they were found guilty.

If the judge decides the offences were aggravated by terrorism, the defendants could face significantly longer sentences.

Handout A composite of photos showing an Asian man in a black woolly hat in his 30s, an Asian woman with a head-scarf and a face covering speaking into a microphone, a white man in his early 30s in a black shirt, a white woman with brown hair in her early 30s and a white woman with brown hair cut into a fringe in her 70s. — From top left: Mohammed Malik, Hmeera Atiqnisar, Brendon O'Hagan, Amanda Kelly and Alma Yaniv

They are due to be sentenced on 4 September at Preston Crown Court.

Laura O'Brien, head of the public order and protest team at Hodge, Jones & Allen solicitors, said: "I think what's particularly unfair in this case is that none of the defendants had been prosecuted on the basis that the prosecution were suggesting there was a terrorist connection.

"This is something that has arisen post-trial, so not dealt with through the preparation of the case.

"The trial was not dealt with by a judge who would be sufficiently qualified to deal with a terrorist case, but instead come up as what appears to be an afterthought raised by the judge of his own volition, rather than, as I understand it anyway, pursued by the prosecution."

O'Brien said the judge's decision appears to have followed on from a decision by Mr Justice Johnson in another case involving Palestine Action protestors targeting an Elbit factory in Bristol.

Johnson ruled that their offending was aggravated by a "terrorist connection", a suggestion that had not been made to the jury.

"When such sentencing practise takes place, it unfortunately seems to bolster other judges to do the same," O'Brien said.

A woman in her 30s with light brown hair tied back and a black jacket speaks into a camera — Solicitor Laura O'Brien said the precedent set by the Johnson ruling was a "concern"

"And the concern here is that this is an example of the knock-on effect of the way that other cases have been dealt with and the way that this judge and other judges may interpret that."

However Hall, an experienced barrister and government advisor on terrorism legislation since 2014, said that although under Scottish law a jury must decide whether an offence is aggravated by terrorism, under English law it is "quite normal" for a judge to make that decision.

"I think that maybe unusually here, you're not talking about murder or manslaughter, you're talking about criminal damage," he said.

"But actually, in principle, it is fairly standard stuff. Judges decide, for example, whether or not someone has committed a racially aggravated offence at the point of sentencing.

"So I think you can see what their complaint is, but in fact, it is just the way in criminal process works in England and Wales."

Hall said the judge would have to come to a conclusion based on the specific facts of the case.

One of the defendants, Mohammed Malik, said in a statement the Johnson ruling "set a dangerous precedent".

"At no point during our trial did the prosecution seek to pursue anything to do with terrorism, and the jury were kept completely in the dark and were not told that if convicted, we could be sentenced as terrorists," he said.

"Despite this, after the trial concluded, the Judge and the CPS are now seeking to sentence us as terrorists for red paint and a few splintered windows.

"This goes far beyond the charges before the court and raises serious concerns about the increasing use of counter terrorism legislation to persecute political dissent."

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