LONDON: Six British pro-Palestinian activists were acquitted of aggravated burglary on Wednesday over a 2024 raid on Israeli defense firm Elbit’s factory, with a jury unable to ​reach verdicts on other charges including criminal damage.
Prosecutors said the six defendants were members of the now-banned group Palestine Action, which organized a meticulously planned assault on the Elbit Systems UK facility in Bristol, southwest England, causing about 1 million pounds ($1.4 million) of damage.
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 smash into the ‌factory ⁠in ​the ‌early hours of August 6, 2024.
Some of the group used fireworks and smoke grenades to keep security guards at bay, while others caused “extensive damage” inside the factory by smashing equipment with crowbars and hammers and spraying red paint, prosecutor Deanna Heer said.
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
The six on trial – Charlotte Head, 29, Samuel ‌Corner, 23, Leona Kamio, 30, Fatema Zainab Rajwani, ‍21, Zoe Rogers, 22, and Jordan Devlin, ‍31 – all denied charges of aggravated burglary, violent disorder and criminal ‍damage.
They were all acquitted of the burglary offense while Rajwani, Rogers and Devlin were found not guilty of violent disorder.
The jury could not reach verdicts on the same charge against Head, Corner and Kamio after more than 36-and-a-half hours of deliberation.
Corner ​had also denied causing grievous bodily harm with intent for hitting a female police sergeant with a sledgehammer. The jury ⁠was unable to reach 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.
Britain proscribed Palestine Action as a terrorist organization last July, almost a year after the Elbit incident took place, making it a crime to be a member.
Judge Jeremy Johnson had told the jurors 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.”
Heer said on Wednesday that prosecutors wanted time ‌to consider whether to seek a retrial on the counts on which the jury could not reach verdicts. ($1 = 0.7294 pounds)