By Sam Tobin
LONDON, Feb 4 (Reuters) – Six British pro-Palestinian activists were acquitted of aggravated burglary over a 2024 raid on Israeli defence firm Elbit’s factory on Wednesday, with a jury returning no guilty verdicts at all in a blow for prosecutors.
The six were members of the now-banned group Palestine Action, which organised a meticulously planned assault on the Elbit Systems UK facility in Bristol, southwest England, in the early hours of August 6, 2024.
The raid, which prosecutors said caused about 1 million pounds ($1.4 million) of damage, took place around 10 months into Israel’s bombardment of Gaza in response to a deadly attack by Hamas-led fighters in October 2023.
Prosecutors had told a jury at London’s Woolwich Crown Court at the start of the trial in November that the six were part of a larger group that used a white former prison van to ram their way into the factory and then smash equipment.
The defendants said they were simply motivated to destroy weapons to stop what they described as Israel’s “genocide” in Gaza and disavowed violence against people.
NOT GUILTY VERDICTS AND HUNG JURY
Charlotte Head, 29, Samuel Corner, 23, Leona Kamio, 30, Fatema Zainab Rajwani, 21, Zoe Rogers, 22, and Jordan Devlin, 31, were all acquitted of aggravated burglary by the jury after more than 36 hours of deliberation.
Rajwani, Rogers and Devlin were found not guilty of violent disorder, while the jury could not reach verdicts on the same charge against Head, Corner and Kamio. The jury could also not reach verdicts on an additional charge of criminal damage.
Corner had also denied causing grievous bodily harm with intent for hitting a female police sergeant with a sledgehammer. The jury was unable to agree a verdict on that count.
The defendants hugged in the dock and waved to supporters in the public gallery, who cheered loudly after the judge had left the court.
Prosecutors said they wanted time to consider whether to seek a retrial on the counts on which the jury could not reach verdicts.
PALESTINIAN ACTION BAN FACES HIGH COURT CHALLENGE
Britain proscribed Palestine Action as a terrorist organisation last July, almost a year after the Elbit incident took place, making it a crime to be a member. The ban has separately come under challenge at London’s High Court.
Judge Jeremy Johnson had told the jury the ban was irrelevant to the criminal trial and they must consider the case “on the evidence, not on the basis of what you or anyone else thinks about Palestine Action or the war in Gaza”.
Prosecutor Deanna Heer said the defendants intended to “cause serious damage to property and to use or threaten unlawful violence against anyone who stood in their way, if necessary with the use of weapons”.
But Head said she was opposed to violence and Corner gave evidence that he only swung the sledgehammer at the police officer to protect one of his friends.
($1 = 0.7294 pounds)
(Reporting by Sam Tobin; editing by Michael Holden and Alex Richardson)
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