![\"LONDON,](\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/GettyImages-2280645476_58d611.jpg?fit=4286%2C2772\")
Four UK-based<\/span> Palestine solidarity activists were sentenced<\/a> as terrorists on Friday for damaging military drones and other equipment at an Elbit Systems UK factory in 2024. Elbit, Israel\u2019s largest arms manufacturer, has provided the vast majority<\/a> of drones<\/a> used in the Israeli military\u2019s genocidal bombardment of Gaza, among other horrors.<\/p>\n The terrorism sentences, handed down by Justice Jeremy Johnson, set a frightening precedent. This is the first time in Britain that anyone has faced terrorism enhancements at sentencing without actually being convicted of terrorist offenses. It is also the first time that \u201ccriminal damage\u201d convictions have been classified as terrorism. It is not, of course, the first time that the so-called Palestine exception<\/a> has entailed the setting of vile legal precedents.<\/p>\n As a point of comparison: The convicted activists, who are affiliated with the Palestine Action network, will spend significantly more<\/a> time in prison than the majority of people arrested<\/a> and convicted for participating in brutal white supremacist riots across the UK in 2024, 2025, and again in recent weeks in Belfast, Northern Ireland \u2014 riots in which migrant shelters have been set on fire and Black and brown people have been beaten in the streets.<\/p>\n The four Elbit protesters, part of the so-called Filton 25<\/a> arrested in relation to the Elbit factory incident, have already been in detention for over two years. They now face five more years in prison for criminal damage with a \u201cterrorist connection.\u201d One defendant was sentenced to a further three years for striking a police officer during the incident. By contrast, a 30-year-old man who kicked and punched Black man in the face amid an anti-immigrant race riot in Manchester in 2024 was sentenced<\/a> to three years in jail; while labeled a \u201cviolent racist\u201d by the presiding judge, he was not labeled a terrorist, nor were any of his fellow pogromists.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is the first case, and therefore the test case, for trying to convict activists as terrorists using a manipulated court process.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n The Palestine Action activists were all previously cleared of heftier charges of aggravated burglary and violent disorder. Now labeled terrorists, however, they will be subject to at least 15 years of terrorist notification requirements, including informing the police of personal and financial details and travel plans.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The defendants were not convicted of terrorist offenses \u2014 the jury convicted them on charges of criminal damage. It was explicitly hidden from the jurors that, in finding the protesters guilty of specific criminal acts, they also opened them to hefty terror enhancements by the judge at sentencing. Justice Johnson had also set strict restrictions on the trial: the defendants were not permitted to tell the jury that their actions were motivated by a desire to save Palestinian lives and prevent greater crimes of mass slaughter; they could not mention the genocide in Gaza or Elbit\u2019s role in it.<\/p>\n \u201cCriminal damage has never been treated as terrorism within the UK justice system before, and it is completely disproportionate to do so because the offence occurred at a protest,\u201d Kerry Moscogiuri, Amnesty International UK\u2019s chief executive, said<\/a> in a statement.<\/p>\n \u201cA terrorism sentence carries restrictions that stay with a person for the rest of their life. We should all be worried about what this means for other individuals taking direct action in protest at a genocide or any other issue,\u201d Moscogiuri said. She called the sentencing a \u201cnew new low in the ongoing crackdown against protest across the UK.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThis is the first case, and therefore the test case, for trying to convict activists as terrorists, using a manipulated court process,\u201d Palestine Action co-founder Huda Ammori told<\/a> Novara Media.<\/p>\n Palestine Action, a loose-knit network of Palestine-solidarity direct-action advocates and activists, has faced extraordinary authoritarian crackdowns in the UK, including a government proscription under the Terrorism Act that renders any support for the group a criminal offense.<\/p>\n For simply holding signs at rallies and sit-ins that bear slogans like \u201cI support Palestine Action,\u201d nearly 3,000 people have been arrested<\/a>. A British High Court ruled the government\u2019s proscription of the group unlawful in February, but the ban remains in place as the government appeals the decision. Over 100 people, many of them elderly retirees, were arrested on Friday outside the sentencing hearing while holding signs<\/a> in support of Palestine Action.<\/p>\n \u201cConvicting activists for one charge, then sentencing them as terrorists, is more outrageous than the proscription of Palestine Action. Everyone needs to mobilize against it,\u201d said Ammori.<\/p>\n As ever, the \u201cterror\u201d label here tells us more about the ideological priorities of the authorities that apply it than it does about the nature or moral standing of any acts deemed \u201cterrorism.\u201d<\/p>\n The treatment of violent anti-immigrant racists in the UK provides a telling point of comparison. After all, the very same Justice Johnson who sentenced the Palestine Action defendants as terrorists and foreclosed their potential for a fair trial moved last year to release<\/a> the UK\u2019s leading far-right provocateur, Tommy Robinson, early from prison. Robinson had been convicted for contempt of court after continuously violating injunctions on spreading false allegations against a Syrian refugee. A High Court had rejected<\/a> his appeal for early release, which Johnson nonetheless granted. Robinson has gone on to aggressively and continuously stoke<\/a> more anti-immigrant, racist violence like the recent pogroms in Belfast.<\/p>\n \u201cIf sentenced with a \u2018terrorist connection\u2019, the Filton 4 will not be afforded the same opportunity as Robinson, a repeat criminal, for early release,\u201d noted<\/a> jury conscience advocacy group Defend Our Juries.<\/p>\n\n