Filton retrial: two walk free as court stranglehold on jury convicts four

• Charlotte Head, Sam Corner, Leona Kamio and Fatema Zainab Rajwani were convicted of criminal damage following a retrial at Woolwich Crown Court
• Zoe Rogers and Jordan Devlin were found not guilty of criminal damage
• Sam Corner was found not guilty of GBH with intent - the most serious charge against any defendant - but convicted of the lesser charge of inflicting GBH
• The defendants were originally held on remand for up to 17 months before their first trial, which returned no convictionsThe retrial took place against a backdrop of judicial controversy, including the unexplained removal of Judge Martin Chamberlain - widely regarded as fair and independent - from related Palestine Action proceedings

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London — CAGE welcomes the acquittals of Zoe Rogers and Jordan Devlin, and the jury's rejection of the most serious charge against Sam Corner. However there are serious concerns about convictions of the four other defendants, because the jury were prevented from hearing evidence about the political context of their actions. The convictions were secured the defendants were prohibited from placing before the jury the fact that they acted to stop weapons being used in a genocide.

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The Defendants addressed the jury after dismissing their lawyers to give their own closing speeches, and named the weapons being built by Elbit, their intended use in agenocide, and the failure of every avenue they had tried before taking direct action. In her statement, Charlotte Head told the jury: 

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"The government doesn't listen when people like you and me ask nicely. They have too much invested, both politically and financially, to act on a moral basis. We tried asking nicely and playing by their rules and they flat out ignored us. I don't believe that wanting to stop human suffering, to stop tens of thousands of innocent people being killed is a fringe belief. I believe it is a commonly held view that underpins what it means to live in a just and humane society.

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Leona Kamio asked the jury where Elbit was - why there were no witnesses, why there was no inventory of what was damaged. “If this was a shop that we’d broken into,” she said, “you’d expect the owner to come to court. You’d expect them to list all the items that were damaged. So where is that information about the weapons we dismantled?”And she was direct about what the prosecution’s silence on Palestinian lives meant: “I don’t understand how anyone could say the law would be incapable of providing protection to anyone - unless they don’t see Palestinians as human beings.”

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Zoe Rogers, who was acquitted today, told the jury she would not hold it against them whatever they decided, because they had not been shown the whole truth. “How can I,”she said, “when you have been kept so in the dark.” She was certain of one thing regardless: “I can say with absolute certainty that this is the best thing I have ever done, because there is a good chance that because of our action that night, innocent lives were saved.” That success is one that no jury can take away from them. 

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Anas Mustapha, Head of Public Advocacy at CAGE, said:

"Zoe Rogers and Jordan Devlin walk free, and the jury refused to convict Sam Corner of the most serious charge he faced - that matters, and we celebrate it. But we will not pretend that today's outcome represents justice. The court constructed a trial in which the jury was denied the very facts that explain why these defendants acted. When you remove genocide from the courtroom, you remove the only context that makes this case comprehensible. The convictions that resulted are a product of that exclusion - not of any genuine finding that what these people did was wrong. This conviction is unsafe and the result of an unfair trial. The judiciary and political establishment who engineered this result stand accused today."