Palestine Action activists jailed over factory raid

[Twiglets1]

The BBC report that four Palestine Action activists have been jailed after causing £1.2m of damage at a UK site of an Israel-based defence firm.

Charlotte Head, 30, Samuel Corner, 23, Leona Kamio, 30, and Fatema Rajwani, 21, were convicted of criminal damage in a retrial after they broke into the Elbit Systems factory near Bristol in August 2024.

Corner was jailed for seven years and eight months for criminal damage and inflicting grievous bodily harm on a police sergeant. The judge, Mr Justice Johnson, said Corner had had no justification for the "extreme and gratuitous force" used.

The case is believed to be the first time that convictions for criminal damage have been classified as being connected to terrorism.

The judge said their actions had aimed to influence the government.

Head, who drove the prison van into the compound, was sentenced to five years in prison, Kamio was also handed a five-year jail term, and Rajwani received a prison sentence of four years and eight months.

The offenders will not qualify for early release from prison provisions and the Parole Board will assess their risk to the public when it determines when they can be set free.

All four will also serve an additional one year on a licence in the community at the end of their terms.

Green Party Leader Zack Polanski said it was "gut-wrenching to see four young people jailed for direct action against an arms supplier to Israel".

He added that the sentence was a "truly dangerous attack on the right to protest".

Labour MP John McDonnell said the scale of the sentences was "truly shocking".

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ce950111xk7o

Prison will feel different to that last line. I wonder how anxious he is about that.

It’s disgusting

There can be no justification for his actions

None at all. How anyone could even try to defend his actions is beyond me. I think they must be so full of hate that they have lost their humanity.

They are part of a cult so they think they are right and are being persecuted. Maybe one day they (or some of them) will realise what they did but it isn’t guaranteed.

They will have plenty of time for reflection in prison but as you say, no guarantee they will actually understand what they did was wrong.

They may see themselves as the victims in this rather than the woman who suffered a fractured spine.

I read the report on link above, thanks. It is concerning if Polanski, and other politicians, haven't referenced the extreme violence shown. He may have done elsewhere - it would be good to know. There was a very busy thread a few weeks ago about Zach's post about the police apprehending the man who had targeted Jewish men to stab. He was concerned at the police methods then.

Corners 'justification' apparently was that he heard his girlfriend screaming and thought she was being attacked so acted on impulse That does not tarry at all with the police officers account. It sounds like he went into a zealous rage and smashed her spine. I know who I would believe in that situation since he hasn't apologised or expressed any regret since. About 40 people were arrested outside, many of them women, who don't seem to care either about violent people smashing things up with sledgehammers and having no regard for the safety of others. We sell a miniscule amount of weapons to Israel.

Prisons are a hotbed of Islamist radicalisation so I doubt it

Would it have been ok if it was a male police officer?

He seems more concerned about what the police do than what those committing crimes do - even those wielding sledgehammers or knives and committing terrorist activity.

Political violence for me but not for thee, seems to be the feeling on the radical left these days.

Of course not

but a man battering a woman with a sledgehammer is just awful

Ditto with the face coverings

No - this would have been..

Also unacceptable

Within the thread on the Golders Green attacks I shared a link that shows Polanski sits on the London Assembly. He is not on the specific committee but one of their roles is to advise the Met. I think it is important to stress that this was not just direct action against property it was a "gratuitous" attack with a sledgehammer on someone doing their job.

Good to see justice being served at last on those thugs

It’s the age old ‘when somebody shows you who they are, believe them’.

A man who is willing to break an innocent woman’s spine with a sledgehammer for his cause is inherently not a good person no matter what that cause is.

Many of these ‘Palestine’ activists are massive egos in keffiyehs. Huge overlaps with misogyny, antisemitism, and anger problems.

Exactly.

I have causes I feel extremely strongly about such as animal welfare.

Wouldn’t be hitting anyone with a sledgehammer though. Or making excuses for anyone else doing it in the name of the cause.

People who were defending this attack seemed to think that we should be sympathetic to the idea that the police shouldn't have gone in with tasers and tear gas to apprehend a group who were swinging around whips and sledgehammers, illegally trespassing and smashing stuff up to the tune of over a million pounds of damage, then resisting arrest. The police should have recognised that this mob were not normal vandals and thugs despite them doing exactly what normal vandals and thugs do.

If it were a Tommy Robinson supporter who had bludgeoned a police officer, they would be full of nothing but condemnation.

Very true … maybe a spell in prison mixing with “the common people” will remind then they ain’t special where the law is concerned.

Here's what Badenoch has posted.

I'm not a Badenoch fan but this is definitely a more appropriate response.

And people wonder why she’s popular.

The sentences are all too light especially for the one who hit the policewoman with a sledgehammer. That should be attempted murder.
They have caused millions of pounds of damage and ruined a lady's life forever. What companies would want to invest in the UK if they thought the legal system would let such behaviour off with a mere slap on the wrist.

What is perplexing me is why Polanski has become popular - if he really has not addressed the extreme violence against the policewoman?

Good for her 'in prison for protesting lives lost in Gaza' Disingenuous. Re why is he popular- because the people he is talking to don't really care about anyone who disagrees with their actions. They are the type of people who think any harm done to anyone but their 'approved' victims is fair game. Police, Jewish people going about their business in the UK, Iranian dissidents etc. All fair game for the Omnicause.