ISRAEL’S largest weapons firm lobbied the Home Office for a retrial after criminal charges against Palestine Action’s co-founders were dismissed, it has been revealed.
Six pro-Palestine activists were acquitted at Snaresbrook Crown Court of nine charges in December 2023, with jurors failing to reach a decision on a further 23 other charges.
However, Elbit Systems, which provides around 80% of the weapons and equipment for Israel’s land forces, UK security director, Chris Morgan, wrote to Britain’s then policing minister, Chris Philp, stating a retrial would be in the “public interest” due to the “prolific and serious nature of Palestine Action’s offending”.
According to Declassified, Morgan wrote to Philp on January 15 where he said that “the founders and controlling minds of the Palestine Action criminal group, Richard Barnard and Huda Ammori, were on trial for a multitude of offences”.
Morgan added: “Whilst Barnard was found guilty of criminal damage at one of our sites, the jury failed to reach a verdict on seven other charges for them both – including two counts of burglary which took place in 2020”.
Morgan then raised concerns that “a re-trial is not a certainty” and suggested “it is very much in the public interest for this trial to be re-heard at the earliest opportunity”, emphasising “the prolific and serious nature of Palestine Action’s offending”.
The letter's details seem to suggest that Elbit Systems have been pressuring the British authorities to crack down on Palestine Action, which the Home Secretary said will be proscribed as a terrorist organisation next week.
The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) subsequently ordered a retrial for the activists, which is scheduled for 2027.
Declassified said that one of the activists described the wait for a retrial as a “form of psychological warfare on defendants”.
Adding: “It’s another year and a half where we can’t progress with our life – you can’t make long-term decisions, or get jobs.
“The consequences go way beyond just waiting for this trial.”
Elbit Systems' proximity to the UK Government has been questioned before as in August 2020 the then UK foreign secretary Dominic Raab met with Orit Farkash-Hacohen, Israel’s former minister of strategic affairs.
The meeting was held just one month after Palestine Action was launched and Farkash-Hacohen pressed Raab on direct action protests against Israeli companies in Britain.
He noted that “the London offices of Elbit Systems” had been attacked for the fourth time in as many weeks.
Raab told her that “he and the British government were committed to stopping such events”, according to a report in Israel National News.
In 2022, former home secretary Priti Patel met privately with Martin Fausset, the CEO of Elbit Systems UK, to “discuss protests and security”.
Home Office documents revealed that the purpose of the meeting was to “reassure… Fausset that the criminal protest acts against Elbit Systems UK are taken seriously by Government”.
Reportedly in the meeting, Patel was told how Palestine Action’s protests against Elbit “were getting more and more severe”, and the activists were “well organised, funded and trained”.
The Conservative MP reportedly became “deeply concerned about everything she heard”, and produced a number of suggested actions. That list remains redacted in its entirety.
