After more than 17 hours of deliberation, a jury at Birmingham crown court has failed to reach a verdict over whether four pro-Palestine activists committed criminal damage at an arms factory.
Iain Evans, Hana-Yun Stevens, Frank Sherman, and Hisham Alkhamezi were each accused of criminal damage at a factory owned by Moog, a US aerospace firm, in Wolverhampton.
During the trial, the jury saw footage from helicopters and CCTV cameras which showed the defendants crashing through the site’s front gate and damaging solar panels on its roof.
Prosecution lawyers presented this as an open and shut case given the defendants admitted in court to occupying the roof in order to shut down the factory’s production line. They said the trial “is not about Israel, it’s not about Palestine… It’s simply about whether they unlawfully damaged property”.
But the jury was also shown a social media post demonstrating that the activists’ goal was to disrupt the supply of UK-made fighter jet components to Israel.
This is also in response to a similar recent case where the judge added on terrorism charges after the jury already decided the defendant was guilty of minor charges.
Perhaps this jury was aware of that and voted against conviction because they don’t believe these activists deserve terrorism charges.
How can a judge add charges that someone hasn’t been found guilty of by a jury and (presumably) would have pled not guilty to.
Step 1: Have the backing of a state with a monopoly on violence
There aren’t really any other steps.
It’s my understanding (not British, nor a lawyer) that they weren’t technically ‘charges’, but bonus time, like how in the US, you get bonus time for robbing a liquor store with a loaded gun instead of an empty one (very American, I know).
Inshallah/ojalá
The prosecution can say what they like, if you feel they did nothing wrong then not guilty is a pretty reasonable choice to take.
Does the UK have jury nullification?
For that matter, wondering about EU, as well.
Yes, Palestine Action was also acquitted by a Jury but then the UK regime did a retrial where they censored all details about the case to the jury, and (like this case) only asked the jury whether the protesters engaged in vandalism. Then they used a legal loophole to slap terrorism charges on top of the guilty verdict.
There’s no low the UK regime won’t stoop to for Israel so they’ll likely force a retrial here as well.
Heaven forbid!
It will be lovely, good, and pure if this case gets the other convictions vacated, somehow.
Yep, we call it jury equity. This has been a point of much contention in regards to protest cases in the recent years, starting with some XR cases, JSO ones and now Palestine Action ones. People have been arrested for holding signs telling jurors their rights, using wording from a plaque that’s in one of our highest courts. Here’s some background from a group that’s protesting against the quashing of this right and potential removal of jury trials: https://defendourjuries.net/about-doj/
Ohhh, brilliant share! Thank you!
“fails”
