UK lawyers’ open letter: Sentencing the Filton 4 as terrorists would violate basic legal principles

Today, over 50 leading UK lawyers and law professors have published an open letter denouncing plans to sentence four members of Palestine Action as terrorists this Friday, after they were convicted of causing damage to Israeli drones at an Elbit Systems factory in August 2024. 

Here’s the letter:

On 12 June, the Crown Prosecution Service will apply to have four young people (Charlotte Head, Leona Kamio, Fatema Zainab Rajwani and Samuel Corner) sentenced as terrorists, solely on the basis of their convictions for criminal damage. This is the first time, in British legal history, that such an application has been made in this context.

Damage to property has been a recurring feature of protest campaigns from the Suffragettes and the women of Greenham Common to Extinction Rebellion and the Trident Ploughshares movement. Military equipment has often been the target. Indeed the subject matter of the case in R v Jones, famous for Lord Hoffman’s dicta on civil disobedience, concerned extensive damage to military aircraft destined to support the invasion of Iraq. The defendants in that case were sentenced with conditional discharges.

It has never previously even been suggested that those taking such action should be treated as terrorists. Blurring the distinction between principled direct action and terrorism is the hallmark of authoritarian regimes.

The prosecution’s application is based on the motivation of the defendants, which was to prevent drones being used to kill civilians in Gaza. According to Mr Justice Johnson, in a preliminary ruling, such a motivation is consistent with section 1 of the Terrorism Act, and thereby capable of establishing a ‘terrorist connection’ for the purposes of The Sentencing Act 2020, section 69(3):

“On s1(1)(b) of the TA 2000, 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.”

In this analysis it is the motivation to “influence the Israeli government” to stop killing Palestinians, which justifies treating convictions for criminal damage as being on a par with acts of terrorism. That cannot be right.

If the prosecution application is successful, the Filton 4 will be sentenced as terrorists: their jail sentences will be extended, early release provisions disapplied, and upon eventual release they could be licensed as terrorists for up to 15 years, requiring them to register any new device, bank account, email, or relationship with the police.

Such an outcome would be wrong in principle for the following reasons:

i) The conscientious motivation of the defendants, which was to save lives and to uphold international law, is a mitigating factor, and it would be perverse, and contrary to basic legal principle, to treat it as an aggravating factor.

ii) It would be wrong to disregard the findings of various international bodies and legal scholars to the effect that the Government of Israel is committing genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity, imposing a moral, if not legal, obligation on all to intercede, in particular by stopping weapons reaching the genocidaires.

iii) It is wrong in principle to sentence people on an entirely different basis from that on which they were convicted (all the more where the potential for a terrorist sentence was actively concealed from the jury).

We note with concern reports of political interference in prosecutions concerning Palestine Action. We note also that one troubling legal precedent has already been set in these proceedings: the attempt to prosecute the lead defence counsel, Rajiv Menon KC, over his closing speech, following a procedure since ruled unlawful by the Court of Appeal.

We, the undersigned, consider it vital to the integrity of the criminal justice system that the Filton 4 are sentenced on the same basis that they were convicted, i.e. causing damage to drones and other property of an Israeli weapons manufacturer, with the conscientious motive of saving lives, upholding international humanitarian law and preventing unimaginable human suffering.

Signed:

Michael Mansfield KC, Barrister

Liz Davies KC, Barrister

Gudrun Young KC, Barrister

Penny Green, Professor of Law and Globalisation QMUL

Declan Owens, Solicitor

David Whyte, Professor of Climate Justice QMUL

Neve Gordon, Professor of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law, QMUL

Yvette Russell, Professor of Law and Feminist Theory, University of Bristol

Bill Bowring, Barrister, Emeritus Professor of Law, Field Court Chambers, Birkbeck College

Richard Vogler, Emeritus Professor of Law, University of Sussex

and 48 others