Source The Guardian Newspaper

Four Palestine Action activists convicted​ after a retrial over a violent protest at an Israeli arms manufacturer’s UK site face being sentenced as terrorists despite the jury not being told this.

In an unprecedented move in a criminal damage case, the judge, Mr Justice Johnson, ruled before the first trial that there appeared to be a “terrorist connection” to the offences – even though the protest took place before Palestine Action was proscribed – but this could not be told to the jury. The finding and the restriction on telling the jury continued for the retrial.

Jurors subsequently convicted Charlotte Head, 29, Samuel Corner, 23, Leona Kamio, 30, and Fatema Rajwani, 21, of criminal damage over the 2024 break-in at the Elbit Systems UK site near Bristol.

The terrorism connection ruling can now be revealed after reporting restrictions were lifted on Tuesday. At sentencing, a separate determination will be made based on the criminal standard of proof of whether there was a terrorism connection.

If the court finds there was, it would mean the four would have to serve their whole sentence in prison, unless a parole board approved their release after completing two-thirds of their sentence. Non-terrorist prisoners usually serve 40% of their sentence.

The parole board would also have to be satisfied that the defendants were reformed and had rescinded their beliefs.

Upon release, the defendants could be recorded as terrorists for life, meaning any new device, bank account, email address or relationship would have to be registered with the police for the rest of their life and they could be sent back to prison if they do not comply or make a mistake.

The jury at Woolwich crown court was not told that this was a possibility when convicting the defendants last week of criminal damage – which is not ordinarily a terrorist offence – for smashing up drones and other equipment at the Elbit factory.

Ruling on the appearance of a terrorist connection in March 2025, Johnson said: “On s1(1)(b) of the TA [Terrorism Act] 2000, [the defence barrister] Rajiv Menon KC and others strongly argued that influencing government was not the purpose of the action – the purpose of the action was to damage weapons and save lives – I accept that this was one motivating factor – but that does not mean that another purpose was not to damage property to be made available to the Israeli government and thereby influence the Israeli government.”

Johnson did not allow the defence of lawful excuse on the charge of criminal damage. In a ruling on 21 April, he said the defendants could not give evidence of motivation, including “their reasons for joining Palestine Action, their beliefs about Elbit’s supply of weapons to Israel for use in the war in Gaza, their views about the actions of Israel in Gaza or its legality or their purpose in causing damage to property at the factory beyond an intention to destroy it or any other evidence which is irrelevant to the issues which the jury are required to determine”.

A Defend Our Juries spokesperson said: “The public will be astonished to learn that in the British justice system a protester can now be convicted of criminal damage for disrupting an arms factory and then be sentenced as ‘terrorists’ without having been convicted of terror charges and with this having been kept secret from the jury.”

They said it could set a dangerous precedent for future protest cases.