Six activists from the ‘pro-Gaza’ campaign group Palestine Action have been cleared of aggravated burglary following a break-in at a UK subsidiary of the Israeli defence company Elbit Systems.
The verdicts were delivered after a trial at Woolwich Crown Court, which began in November 2025 and saw the jury deliberate for more than 36 hours.
The defendants—Charlotte Head, 29; Samuel Corner, 23; Leona Kamio, 30; Fatema Rajwani, 21; Zoe Rogers, 22; and Jordan Devlin, 31—were charged with criminal damage and violent disorder. However, the jury reached partial or no verdicts on those counts.
Rajwani, Rogers, and Devlin were found not guilty of violent disorder, while no verdict was reached on violent disorder charges for Head, Corner, and Kamio. Corner faced an additional charge of causing grievous bodily harm to a police officer with a sledgehammer, but the jury was unable to reach a decision. Prosecutors may now seek a second trial for the unresolved charges.
The Elbit Systems facility near Bristol had been targeted in the early hours of August 6th, 2024. Palestine Action claims that the company is involved in supplying weapons to the Israeli military, allegations strongly denied by Elbit.
Perhaps unwisely, the UK government designated Palestine Action as a terrorist organization under anti-terror laws, following previous attacks on Royal Air Force aircraft by members of the group. The designation makes it a criminal offence to belong to or promote the organization, with potential prison sentences of up to 14 years. The move bundles Palestine Action legally with proscribed groups such as Hamas, al-Qaeda, and Islamic State/ISIS (but not, at least until recently, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps).
