Craig Murray: Hiding the Terrorism Charge

By keeping anti-genocide activists in prison pending sentencing and — unbeknownst to the jury — adding a “terrorism” aggravation, the judge may intend abnormally long sentences.

The Court of Appeal stopping the High Court’s contempt-of-court action in London against Rajiv Menon KC for defending his anti-genocide clients was purely on procedural grounds.

The court ruled that Justice Jeremy Johnson had to instead pursue Menon to the High Court via the attorney general, not directly. The case has thus been referred back to Johnson to go the attorney general route.

Given that Johnson is a vicious authoritarian, a former lawyer for the security services who did everything possible to rig the Filton trial against the anti-genocide defendants who took direct action against an Israeli munitions plant in Britain, and that Attorney General Richard “Lord” Helmer is a vicious pro-genocidal Zionist who was Israel’s go-to lawyer on war crimes charges in the U.K., this contempt-of-court action may well not be over.

Lawyer defeats contempt charge for defending Palestine Action clients https://t.co/EhjF69LSS9

In addition to barring the use of the terms “genocide” or “ethnic cleansing” at trial, barring the defence of necessity to stop war crimes, barring the defendants from explaining the motive of their actions and barring the jury from being informed of their absolute legal right to acquit, Judge Johnson also barred the jury from being told that he intended to add terrorism aggravation onto sentencing.

This is incredibly important. The norm in England is that you serve 40 percent of a jail sentence in prison and 60 percent on parole.

If the terrorism aggravation is applied, you serve 100 percent in jail. In this case, the difference is between two years or five years in prison. This was hidden from the jury.

In retrial of first 6 of Filton 24, words needed to explain their actions were “blacklisted”. Reporting ban now lifted, read about the trial:https://t.co/DjAnA0Az47

A terrorism aggravation will also lead to debanking, severe travel restrictions and very probably loss of career.

The Filton action against the Elbit weapons factory preceded the proscription of Palestine Action as a terrorist organisation, but a judge can add a terrorism aggravation to any offence.

(You may recall that in Scotland a young woman is facing charges of “dangerous driving aggravated by terrorism” for an action against the Leonardo weapons factory).

Violence against property can be construed as terrorism in the U.K. if the objective is to influence government.

Extraordinarily, Judge Johnson has indicated that he believes that the actions against the Israeli weapons factories may be intended to influence the policy of the government of Israel.

He will announce his final decision at sentencing but he has already told the court (but not the jury) that is his thinking.

The activists have already spent 16 months in jail on remand.

In any precedent for a first-time criminal damage conviction, including the sentences of Palestine Action and climate activists, they would be extremely unlikely to be given sentences of more than three years in jail.

With the standard 40 percent tariff, that means they would not have further prison time but some remaining time on parole.

Therefore Judge Johnson’s decision to keep them in prison pending sentencing next month appears to indicate he is intending to impose abnormally long sentences and the terrorist aggravation.

Two of the six defendants were completely acquitted. Three were acquitted on all counts, except the most minor one of criminal damage. But for this, Johnson can sentence them to 10 years in prison and use terrorism aggravation to remove the possibility of parole.

Firstly, the notion that those damaging Israeli weapons did so in the hope of changing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s mind about destroying Gaza — as opposed to destroying some of his weapons supply — is plainly nonsensical.

The second is that if they were trying to change Netanyahu’s mind, they were trying to influence him against committing genocide, which only a hardwired Zionist nutter like Judge Johnson can consider a bad thing.

Meanwhile, the legal fight against the proscription of Palestine Action continues. We are back in court on May 27 in Edinburgh with a motion to suspend the proscription in Scotland. We urgently need funds to take on the power and unlimited resources of the state.

If you know people who are able to afford to help and likely to be sympathetic, please do contact them and ask their assistance. We are trying to keep a lot of very good people out of prison.

Craig Murray is an author, broadcaster and human rights activist. He was British ambassador to Uzbekistan from August 2002 to October 2004 and rector of the University of Dundee from 2007 to 2010. His coverage is entirely dependent on reader support. Subscriptions to keep this blog going are gratefully received.

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This article is from CraigMurray.org.uk.