The Filton 4: sentenced for terrorism despite not being convicted of terrorism
I examine how, as with the proscription of Palestine Action as a terrorist organization, amended terrorism legislation, from 2000 and 2021, is being used to falsely convict activists of terrorism.
The Filton 4: Charlotte Head, Leona Kamio, Samuel Corner and Fatema Zainab Rajwani. Collage via the Free the Filton 25 website.
My new article on my website, How Were the Filton 4 Sentenced for Terrorism When They Weren’t Convicted of Terrorism?, is the last of three articles (one here, and two on my website), about the recent concerted assault on the direct action group Palestine Action in the UK courts. In this new article, I follow up on my first article, about the sentencing of the Filton 4 last Friday, with a detailed analysis of how the judge, Mr. Justice Johnson, was able to sentence the four activists for terrorism, when they weren’t convicted of terrorism by the jury in their recent retrial.
As with the proscription of Palestine Action as a terrorist organization, which was upheld by the Court of Appeal on Monday, and which drew extensively on the shameful redefining of terrorism to include “serious damage to property” in the Terrorism Act 2000, Mr. Justice Johnson’s legal subterfuge also involved focusing on deeply contentious legislation; in this case, Priti Patel’s Counter-Terrorism and Sentencing Act 2021.
Prior to the passage of the 2021 Act, judges were empowered, after a conviction by a jury, to deliver an aggravated sentence if the crimes for which the defendants were convicted were determined to have a terrorist connection.
That specifically meant crimes that included murder, a number of explosives offences, hijacking, hostage-taking and serious aviation offences, but in the 2021 Act Priti Patel arranged for it to be expanded to include any offence that carries a maximum penalty of more than two years’ imprisonment.
I quote extensively from a speech in Parliament by a dissenting peer, Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames, who correctly concluded that the 2021 Act “would create a whole raft of new aggravated offences, for which offenders would be sentenced on the basis that the offences had a terrorist connection without the question of whether they had such a connection ever having been tried by a jury or a judge or even tried on the basis of admissible evidence.”
Lord Marks had sought unsuccessfully to introduce an amendment that “would require a trial of the issue as to whether or not there is a terrorist connection in relation to an aggravated offence”, but his amendment was defeated, and last Friday everything he had warned about came true in the sentencing of Filton 4 — not just via the augmented sentencing, but also via its enduring impact of the lives of the Filton 4, who, despite being first-time offenders, will not be eligible for reduced sentences, and will be haunted by their designation as terrorists for up to 15 years after their eventual release.
What Lord Marks could not have seen, however, was how, in order to deliver these augmented sentences, Mr. Justice Johnson would also distort the trial proceedings, hiding crucial evidence, and seeking to silence the defendants from explaining why they undertook the actions that they did, as well as refusing to allow the jurors to exercise their long-established right to acquit defendants if they believe that their actions were undertaken on the basis of their consciences.
The big question now, for anyone concerned with justice in the UK, is how we get Priti Patel’s absurd expansion of judicial powers involving augmented sentencing removed before another group of people who are not terrorists, and haven’t been convicted of terrorism, meet the same twisted judicial fate.
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The UK is so corrupt.