Following the acquittal of all six defendants in the Filton Palestine Action trial on the most serious charge of Aggravated Burglary, new bail applications were lodged by defence lawyers on behalf of others accused of taking part in or helping organise the August 2024 action at Elbit Systems’ R&D facility near Bristol. A total of 24 people have been arrested in connection with the incident, and all were remanded on arrest, spending time in prison before trial, way beyond normal custody limits.
The prosecution used ‘joint enterprise’ rules to charge all 24 with the same three offences (Aggravated Burglary, Criminal Damage and Violent Disorder) even if they weren’t at the scene. But the Filton acquittals meant that the prosecution have now “offered no evidence” against any of the others, leading to the renewed bail applications.
On Wednesday, Mr Justice Johnson heard applications on behalf of seven defendants at Woolwich Crown Court, and gave them all conditional bail under a set of severe restrictions. Six were released the same day, while one was held until Friday while a second application was organised over a separate incident. On Friday at the Old Bailey, Johnson approved a further ten, nine of whom were released from various prisons the same day.
Of the 24 accused, only one (Samuel Corner) will for the moment remain in prison, as he faces a retrial after the jury could not reach a verdict on his charge of committing Grievous Bodily Harm With Intent. Sean Middleborough (who was given a short conditional bail last year but failed to surrender) is still at large, although the most serious charge against him has of course now fallen through.
There are aspects of the Filton trials that reporting restrictions prevent us from referencing, but we can at least remind readers that Yvette Cooper very publicly portrayed the incident at Filton as a starting point for her decision to proscribe the Palestine Action group as a terrorist organisation. Now, the most serious charge has been dropped and the prisoners’ released, and the High Court has ruled that her decision was unlawful. Surely the notion must now be questionable, that it’s a terrorist act to take direct action (property damage) against companies complicit in Israel’s crimes.
On Thursday, a detailed complaint was delivered to Police Counter Terrorism Command (SO15) calling for a criminal investigation into four past and present British directors of Elbit Systems UK over complicity in war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide in Gaza.
The Public Interest Law Centre (PILC), are supported by Campaign Against The Arms Trade (CAAT) to act on behalf of a Palestinian national living in the UK, whose family is still in Gaza. They draw on extensive documented research by UN bodies, international courts, human rights organisations and other open-source investigations to provide credible evidence of breaches under the International Criminal Court Act 2001 and related domestic law.
Elbit Systems UK, and its UK subsidiaries are accused of aiding, abetting or otherwise assisting grave breaches of international humanitarian law through the export of drone engines, targeting equipment and other military systems to Israel, and the complaint is laid against the four directors by setting out the relevant legal framework, Elbit’s corporate structure, and UK operations, together with evidence directly linking Elbit equipment to attacks in Gaza. According to research by Campaign Against the Arms Trade, Israel’s genocide in Gaza would not be possible without Elbit Systems – it provides 85% of the combat drones used by the Israeli military.
PILC believe they have catalogued enough credible information against Elbit’s UK executives to justify a full SO15 investigation using specialist powers under the ICCA and UK criminal law. As British nationals or UK-resident directors of a UK-registered company, they fall clearly within English and Welsh courts’ jurisdiction, and as such it’s time they were held to account. A PILC spokesperson warned that “Whether the Met chooses to investigate this complaint will show whether the ICC Act 2001 is worth the paper it’s written on.”
In the context of the High Court’s ruling that the government’s proscription of Palestine Action was unlawful, and the Filton jury’s across the board rejection of the most serious charge (Aggravated Burglary) against the Filton 6, the Metropolitan Police response will be a test of whether their Counter Terrorism Command will now focus on real criminals so that ordinary citizens don’t have to.
