This article originally published on 23rd March has been updated to draw the parallels with Filton 24 in the UK after their own press conference on the 25th March.
Watch both press conferences in full below.
The Ulm 5, who include an Irish citizen and two from the UK, have been accused of breaking into the site of the German subsidiary of Israeli arms manufacturer Elbit Systems, in Ulm, south-west Germany, on 8th September 2025, and of damaging property there.
The Filton 24 are accused of involvement in a similar break-in in the UK at the Elbit Systems research and development facility in Filton near Bristol, on 6th August 2024.
German authorities have used controversial Section 129 legislation, classing the defendants as members of a criminal organisation, to hold them for more than seven months without charge, with particularly cruel treatment including very limited contact with lawyers and family, segregation and solitary confinement.
UK authorities originally used terrorist powers against Filton arrestees to limit contact with lawyers and family in the first week of custody. Despite terrorist charges being dropped, the defendants faced similar injustices in the UK prison system, ramped up further when Palestine Action was proscribed nearly a year later. At time of writing, that proscription has been deemed unlawful by the High Court, but the Supreme Court will hear a Labour government appeal against that ruling at the end of this month.
Elbit Systems supplies a huge amount of deadly weaponry to the Israeli Occupying Forces. Arms trade researcher, and former member of Nelson Mandela’s government, Andrew Feinstein, believes that Elbit Systems has been responsible for more deaths in the past two and a half years than any other company on the planet.
In the UK the Public Interest Law Centre has submitted a detailed legal complaint against Elbit Systems to the Metropolitan Police. German lawyers, likewise, cite Section 32 of the German Criminal Code in their defence – that the ULM 5 were carrying out self-defence or defence of another in the face of Israel’s unlawful occupation and genocide.
The parallels are crystal clear between the UK and German governments’ overreach, to clamp down on protest and dissuade any form of direct action to interfere with Israel’s ongoing genocide and land-grab.
After hearing eight weeks of evidence, a UK jury failed to find any of the first six Filton defendants guilty of a crime, but the Prosecution Service has requested a retrial, currently scheduled to begin at Woolwich Crown Court on the 13th April.
The German trial begins at the end of the month but the court will be sitting on non-consecutive dates over many weeks, causing extra difficulties for families, supporters and journalists.
WATCH BOTH PRESS CONFERENCES IN FULL:
Ahead of a trial due to begin on 27th April, parents and defence lawyers were joined by arms trade expert Andrew Feinstein in this live press conference from Berlin organised by Cage International. 1pm GMT 23rd March 2026.
In a similar press conference in London a couple of days later, some of the Filton 24 defendants revealed their stories of abuse, both physical and legal, during more than a year of remand without trial.
Livestream broadcast originally by The Crispin Flintoff Show
