The judge didn’t allow Palestine Action activists at trial to explain they were trying to stop a genocide. Their attorneys decried terrorism sentences following a nonviolent conviction as unprecedented and dangerous to speech.
London police making an arrest during a demonstration against the proscription of Palestine Action, Sept. 6, 2025. (Alisdaire Hickson, Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0)
By Stephen Prager
Common Dreams
In a decision that Amnesty International described as “completely disproportionate,” four demonstrators with the outlawed group Palestine Action were sentenced as terrorists in the U.K. on Friday after being convicted for causing damage at an Israeli weapons factory in 2024 to protest the genocide in Gaza.
Supporters of the so-called “Filton 4” were filmed crying and embracing outside Woolwich Crown Court in London as the judge, Mr Justice Jeremy Johnson, handed down sentences ranging from four years and eight months to seven years and eight months to the four young defendants.
Charlotte Head, 30; Leona Kamio, 30; and Fatema Rajwani, 21, were convicted of criminal damage last month after a break-in at a factory in Bristol owned by the Israeli company Elbit Systems, where they smashed up over a dozen drones and other military equipment, causing around £1.2 million, or $1.6 million, of damage.
A fourth defendant, 23-year-old Samuel Corner, was also convicted for the damage, as well as grievous bodily harm without intent for striking a policewoman on the scene with a sledgehammer, fracturing her spine.
?? ?? Four Palestine Action Activists Sentenced as ‘Terrorists’ in UK Legal First
Four activists who raided an Elbit Systems arms factory near Bristol in 2024 were sentenced as “terrorists” Friday at Woolwich Crown Court, in what supporters said is the first time UK protesters… pic.twitter.com/gC4MvAXfz4
— Drop Site (@DropSiteNews) June 12, 2026
In what has been described as a legal first for Britain, Johnson sentenced the four defendants as terrorists, although three had only been convicted of property damage. He did so under the Sentencing Act of 2020, which allows non-terrorism crimes to be treated as terrorism if they meet certain criteria.
Elbit’s drones have been documented in use during attacks on civilians, including the April 2024 strike on a World Central Kitchen convoy that killed seven aid workers.
Last month, 22-year-old Zoe Rogers, another activist who took part in the Elbit raid but was acquitted, said she believed that because of their sabotage of the drones, “innocent lives were saved” in Gaza.
However, Johnson did not allow the defendants to explain the reason for their actions as part of the trial, nor were jurors informed that the defendants could later receive sentences for terrorism.
Because the protesters had caused “serious damage to property” for the purpose of “advancing a political or ideological cause,” Johnson determined that the protesters could be sentenced as terrorists using the broad definition from the Terrorism Act 2000.
The terrorism designation means that defendants will have to serve a minimum of two-thirds of their sentences in prison and will be required to register as terrorists with the police for the next 15 years.
Attorneys for the defendants said they were not informed that their clients were at risk of being sentenced for terrorism and accused the prosecution of submitting key evidence, including a report on the cost of damage to the factory, “at the 59th minute of the eleventh hour,” giving them little time to form a rebuttal.
The defendants’ attorneys described the precedent that someone could be sentenced for terrorism after being convicted of a nonviolent offense as unprecedented and dangerous to speech.
“It’s wrong for someone to be sentenced for a more serious offense of which they have not been convicted,” said Corner’s attorney, Tom Wainwright, who noted that similar measures could have been used to sentence earlier protest movements, like the suffragettes or other anti-war demonstrators who sabotaged military equipment, for terrorism simply because their actions had a political motivation.
Head’s attorney, Rajiv Menon, described the attempt to sentence his client as unprecedented, and warned that it was “an invitation to chilling, creeping authoritarianism that undermines the very fabric of our society.”
After their conviction, Wainwright hailed the protesters as people of conscience: “[The drones] may have been involved in taking the lives of men, women, and children in Gaza. That is why they acted. That’s something that—in a sane world—would be commended.”
In a post to social media following news of the conviction, Amnesty U.K. condemned the use of terrorism powers in this case.
“It is completely disproportionate to punish protesters for criminal damage as if they were terrorists, a sentence which stays with you for life,” the human rights group said.
More than 70 people were arrested for supporting the proscribed group Palestine Action outside Woolwich Crown Court.
The arrests happened as four members of Palestine Action were sentenced over a separate incident. pic.twitter.com/kRkXEjbPFm
— Channel 4 News (@Channel4News) June 12, 2026
The sentencing comes amid a broader crackdown in the U.K. against pro-Palestine speech and protest that has ramped up even under a Labour government, which has sought to label even peaceful demonstrations as terrorism.
Following another case in which Palestine Action protesters vandalized military equipment — this time on a U.K. Royal Air Force base — the government of Prime Minister Keir Starmer in 2025 used the same terrorism law cited by Johnson to label the group as proscribed, effectively making it illegal to belong to it or publicly support it.
Police have arrested numerous peaceful protesters for no other crime than holding signs that read: “I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action.”
Amnesty said in May that more than 3,300 people had been arrested across the U.K. since the proscription took effect and that more than 1,200 protesters had been charged with terrorism-related offenses.
Eight other Palestine Action activists, including four others who have been accused of involvement with the Elbit break-in, went on a lengthy hunger strike this past winter to protest their confinement in prison for more than a year without trial, during which time they alleged that they were denied needed medical care and had their communication with the outside world censored.
Amnesty said the Filton 4 “were sentenced as terrorists because prosecutors want to make an example of them.”
On Friday, as hundreds rallied outside the court against the terrorism sentence, more than 100 peaceful protesters were also arrested for allegedly supporting Palestine Action.
Video of one of the arrests, published by Channel 4 News, shows police officers lifting an elderly woman by her arms and legs and dragging her away from a larger group of people holding signs.
“You’re under arrest under Section 13 of the Terrorism Act,” one officer is heard saying.
Stephan Prager is a staff writer for Common Dreams.
This article is from Common Dreams.
Views expressed in this article and may or may not reflect those of Consortium News.
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