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terrorism
UK Palestine Action Activists Hit With ‘Completely Disproportionate’ Terrorism Sentences for Israeli Weapons Sabotage
Amnesty UK said the defendants "were sentenced as terrorists because prosecutors want to make an example of them."
Jun 12, 2026
In a decision that Amnesty International described as "completely disproportionate," four demonstrators with the outlawed group Palestine Action were sentenced as terrorists in the UK on Friday after being convicted for causing damage at an Israeli weapons factory in 2024 to protest the genocide in Gaza.
Supporters of the so-called "Filton 4" were filmed crying and embracing outside Woolwich Crown Court in London as the judge, Mr Justice Jeremy Johnson, handed down sentences ranging from four years and eight months to seven years and eight months to the four young defendants.
Charlotte Head, 30; Leona Kamio, 30; and Fatema Rajwani, 21, were convicted of criminal damage last month after a break-in at a factory in Bristol owned by the Israeli company Elbit Systems, where they smashed up over a dozen drones and other military equipment, causing around £1.2 million, or $1.6 million, of damage.
A fourth defendant, 23-year-old Samuel Corner, was also convicted for the damage, as well as grievous bodily harm without intent for striking a policewoman on the scene with a sledgehammer, fracturing her spine.
🇬🇧 🇵🇸 Four Palestine Action Activists Sentenced as ‘Terrorists’ in UK Legal First
Four activists who raided an Elbit Systems arms factory near Bristol in 2024 were sentenced as “terrorists” Friday at Woolwich Crown Court, in what supporters said is the first time UK protesters… pic.twitter.com/gC4MvAXfz4
— Drop Site (@DropSiteNews) June 12, 2026
In what has been described as a legal first for Britain, Johnson sentenced the four defendants as terrorists, although three had only been convicted of property damage. He did so under the Sentencing Act of 2020, which allows nonterrorism crimes to be treated as terrorism if they meet certain criteria.
Elbit's drones have been documented in use during attacks on civilians, including the April 2024 strike on a World Central Kitchen convoy that killed seven aid workers.
Last month, 22-year-old Zoe Rogers, another activist who took part in the Elbit raid but was acquitted, said she believed that because of their sabotage of the drones, "innocent lives were saved" in Gaza.
However, Johnson did not allow the defendants to explain the reason for their actions as part of the trial, nor were jurors informed that the defendants could later receive sentences for terrorism.
Because the protesters had caused “serious damage to property” for the purpose of “advancing a political or ideological cause,” Johnson determined that the protesters could be sentenced as terrorists using the broad definition from the Terrorism Act 2000.
The terrorism designation means that defendants will have to serve a minimum of two-thirds of their sentences in prison and will be required to register as terrorists with the police for the next 15 years.
Attorneys for the defendants said they were not informed that their clients were at risk of being sentenced for terrorism and accused the prosecution of submitting key evidence, including a report on the cost of damage to the factory, “at the 59th minute of the eleventh hour," giving them little time to form a rebuttal.
The defendants’ attorneys described the precedent that someone could be sentenced for terrorism after being convicted of a nonviolent offense as unprecedented and dangerous to speech.
“It’s wrong for someone to be sentenced for a more serious offense of which they have not been convicted,” said Corner's attorney, Tom Wainwright, who noted that similar measures could have been used to sentence earlier protest movements, like the suffragettes or other anti-war demonstrators who sabotaged military equipment, for terrorism simply because their actions had a political motivation.
Head's attorney, Rajiv Menon, described the attempt to sentence his client as unprecedented, and warned that it was “an invitation to chilling, creeping authoritarianism that undermines the very fabric of our society."
After their conviction, Wainwright hailed the protesters as people of conscience: "[The drones] may have been involved in taking the lives of men, women, and children in Gaza. That is why they acted. That’s something that—in a sane world—would be commended.”
In a post to social media following news of the conviction, Amnesty UK condemned the use of terrorism powers in this case.
"It is completely disproportionate to punish protesters for criminal damage as if they were terrorists, a sentence which stays with you for life," the human rights group said.
More than 70 people were arrested for supporting the proscribed group Palestine Action outside Woolwich Crown Court.
The arrests happened as four members of Palestine Action were sentenced over a separate incident. pic.twitter.com/kRkXEjbPFm
— Channel 4 News (@Channel4News) June 12, 2026
The sentencing comes amid a broader crackdown in the UK against pro-Palestine speech and protest that has ramped up even under a Labour government, which has sought to label even peaceful demonstrations as terrorism.
Following another case in which Palestine Action protesters vandalized military equipment—this time on a UK Royal Air Force base—the government of Prime Minister Keir Starmer in 2025 used the same terrorism law cited by Johnson to label the group as proscribed, effectively making it illegal to belong to it or publicly support it.
Police have arrested numerous peaceful protesters for no other crime than holding signs that read: "I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action."
Amnesty said in May that more than 3,300 people had been arrested across the UK since the proscription took effect and that more than 1,200 protesters had been charged with terrorism-related offenses.
Eight other Palestine Action activists, including four others who have been accused of involvement with the Elbit break-in, went on a lengthy hunger strike this past winter to protest their confinement in prison for more than a year without trial, during which time they alleged that they were denied needed medical care and had their communication with the outside world censored.
Amnesty said the Filton 4 "were sentenced as terrorists because prosecutors want to make an example of them."
On Friday, as hundreds rallied outside the court against the terrorism sentence, more than 100 peaceful protesters were also arrested for allegedly supporting Palestine Action.
Video of one of the arrests, published by Channel 4 News, shows police officers lifting an elderly woman by her arms and legs and dragging her away from a larger group of people holding signs.
"You're under arrest under Section 13 of the Terrorism Act," one officer is heard saying.
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Report Details How Post-9/11 Legal Policies Laid Groundwork for Trump 'Terrorizing Migrants'
A legal expert explores how the administration is "weaponizing the law... to effectuate a widespread harassment and mass deportation campaign that is more akin to ethnic cleansing than routine immigration enforcement."
May 05, 2026
President Donald Trump's taxpayer-funded mass deportation campaign has tormented communities across the country with militarized federal agents, killed immigrants and US citizens alike, abused demonstrators and detainees of all ages, and sparked fears of an expansive effort to strip citizenship from Americans.
The "Terrorizing Migrants" report released Tuesday by the Costs of War Project at Brown University's Watson School of International and Public Affairs details how Trump's xenophobic campaign reflects "specific law and policy options created and strengthened among all three branches of the US government, on a bipartisan basis, since 9/11."
"These law and policy options place heightened unchecked discretionary authority within the administration, and are particularly ripe for abuse against noncitizen persons of color by immigration authorities, law enforcement agents, and other executive branch officials," wrote Widener University Delaware Law School assistant professor Elizabeth Beavers, author of the report.
The publication focuses on five key post-9/11 precedents borrowed from the "War on Terror," though it acknowledges that "the Trump administration is relying on laws and policies far beyond those described in this paper to effectuate its broader anti-immigrant agenda, and justifying much of it in national security language."
The first of the five precedents is "conflation of immigration enforcement and counterterrorism." The report recalls that after the 2001 terrorist attacks, the Federal Bureau of Investigation "orchestrated a mass investigation" that "exclusively targeted Arab, Muslim, and South Asian immigrants in a dragnet roundup, subjecting them to secretive detention at locations inside the US," and holding many of them "for weeks or even months without any charges at all."
Beavers also pointed to the George W. Bush administration's launch of the National Security Entry and Exit Registration System, as well as the creation of the US Department of Homeland Security and the placement of Immigration and Customs Enforcement within DHS. ICE and Customs and Border Protection agents have been key to Trump's campaign.
The Muslim ban from Trump's first term "built upon the structures that came before it, but greatly expanded legal presumptions that people of particular races, religions, and nationalities carry inherent danger," Beavers wrote. His second term policies have "extended this precedent to its logical conclusion by framing migration itself as terrorism. And nearly 25 years after its post-9/11 creation, ICE has been unleashed and empowered to roam American streets, snatching and disappearing people they perceive as unlawfully present, often based solely on race, and often without verifying their immigration status."
The second precedent Beavers explored is "expanded and politicized 'terrorist' designation lists." She noted Trump's invasion of Venezuela and abduction of its president, Nicolás Maduro, as well as his boat-bombing spree allegedly targeting drug traffickers in international waters.
The expert also dove into "deporting people as 'terrorists' without proving actual violent conduct," flagging Trump's "reverse migration" pledge after an Afghan man allegedly shot two National Guard members in Washington, DC, along with the administration's decision to "hold and review" asylum applications for people from "high-risk" countries.
That review, she warned, "could result in mass removal from the country of 'terrorist' noncitizens who involuntarily paid money to cartels at some point in their lives, whose family remittances have crossed hands with cartel-controlled actors, who have family members or other connections to a designated cartel but no involvement themselves, or who have unwillingly been pressed into service of a cartel at some point."
Much gratitude to @costsofwar.bsky.social for publishing my newest paper, highlighting how legal tools that started as post-9/11 counterterrorism abuses are now being weaponized further for Trump's anti-immigrant agenda:
[image or embed]
— Elizabeth Beavers (@elizabethrb.bsky.social) May 5, 2026 at 10:49 AM
The fourth precedent examined in the analysis is "indefinite detention, torture, and rendition of noncitizens." Beavers began the section with the detention camp at US Naval Station Guantánamo Bay in Cuba, which she called "perhaps one of the most notorious features of the US government's post-9/11 'War on Terror.'"
"It is both a place where every post-9/11 president has detained Muslim men in connection with the post-9/11 counterterrorism wars, but it is also a place where unauthorized migrants are sometimes held," she wrote. "More than 700 migrants have been sent to and from Guantánamo in President Trump's second term, detained there by ICE with support from the military."
The expert also highlighted Trump's deportation of hundreds of men to El Salvador's infamous Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT)—based on often dubious claims that they belonged to the gang Tren de Aragua, which the president designated as a terrorist organization—as well as the "practice of disappearing people into secretive immigration detention" within the United States, and reports indicating that "abusive treatment in those facilities may amount to unlawful torture."
The final precedent Beavers explored is the "anti-democratic concentration of executive national security powers." She wrote that "the second Trump administration has made prompt use of this latitude" from federal courts since 9/11.
"This has included: manipulating the 'terrorist' designation lists in novel ways to include drug cartels without needing court approval, which has expanded the scope of people who can be deported as 'terrorists'; claiming a maximalist version of its immigration powers, daring courts to intervene; invoking the state secrets privilege to avoid accountability in cases challenging its deportation orders; and indefinitely detaining and torturing migrants," Beavers continued. "They have taken each of these actions without fear they will be meaningfully held accountable in court."
Based on her review, the professor concluded that "indisputably, administration officials are weaponizing the law in new and particularly indefensible ways to effectuate a widespread harassment and mass deportation campaign that is more akin to ethnic cleansing than routine immigration enforcement."
"Neither Congress nor the courts have meaningfully checked presidents or held them accountable for their expansive and spurious claims of war authorities, national security powers, and counterterrorism mechanisms to justify harmful and discriminatory practices against noncitizens and especially against people of color," she stressed. "In these and many other ways, US policymakers on a bipartisan basis built and sharpened the legal weapons that President Trump is now utilizing against immigrants."
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Cuba Says Men on Florida Boat 'Intended to Carry Out an Infiltration for Terrorist Purposes'
The Cuban Interior Ministry said it detained seven people involved in the plot, including one who "had allegedly been sent from the United States to facilitate the landing and reception of the armed group."
Feb 26, 2026
The Cuban government said Wednesday that the men on a Florida-registered boat who opened fire on Cuban soldiers in the island's territorial waters were bent on carrying out "an infiltration for terrorist purposes."
In a statement following news that Cuban forces had killed four people on the boat, the besieged Caribbean nation's Interior Ministry said the vessel was carrying 10 men, all "Cuban nationals residing in the United States."
The ministry said it seized assault rifles, explosives, body armor, and other items from the boat and identified seven of its passengers, six of whom were detained. Four men on the boat—which, according to reports, was last purchased in 2022—were killed in the gunfight with Cuban soldiers, who had reportedly "approached the vessel for identification."
Cuban authorities also said another individual, Duniel Hernández Santos, was arrested "within national territory." The Interior Ministry said Santos "had allegedly been sent from the United States to facilitate the landing and reception of the armed group and has confessed to his role."
"The investigation remains ongoing until all facts have been fully established," the ministry said.
Participants in Foiled Armed Infiltration in Villa Clara Identified
As part of the ongoing investigation into the armed attack against a patrol vessel of the Border Guard Troops of the Ministry of the Interior, in the northeastern area of the El Pino channel, at Cayo Falcones,… pic.twitter.com/s9IFmUkqvk
— Cuban Embassy in US (@EmbaCubaUS) February 26, 2026
The deadly incident came as Cuba continued to reel from the Trump administration's recent intensification of decades-long economic warfare against the island. The administration is "actively seeking regime change in Cuba," according to Wall Street Journal reporting from last month.
Wednesday's incident called to the minds of observers past efforts, backed by the US, to topple the Cuban government, from the failed Bay of Pigs invasion to Operation Mongoose.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the son of Cuban immigrants, denied that any American government personnel were involved in the incident and said it was under investigation.
"We're going to find out exactly what happened here, and then we'll respond accordingly," said Rubio, a longtime supporter of regime change in Cuba. "It is highly unusual to see shootouts in open sea like that. It's not something that happens every day. It's something, frankly, that hasn't happened with Cuba in a very long time."
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