SEVERAL high-profile political figures have spoken out against the "gut wrenching" sentencing of four Palestine Action activists as terrorists.
Charlotte Head, 30, Samuel Corner, 23, Leona Kamio, 30, and Fatema Rajwani, 21, crashed an old prison van into the Elbit Systems site near Bristol in the early hours of August 6, 2024.
The activists, all wearing red boilersuits, used sledgehammers and crowbars to destroy computers, drones and other equipment before police and security intervened.
Corner, a former student at Oxford, also struck police officer Kate Evans twice on the back with a seven pound sledgehammer, leaving her with a fractured spine.
The judge ruled that the raid amounted to an “act of terrorism”, having been carried out to try to influence the UK Government and intimidate a section of the public.
The decision has been criticised by human rights organisations like Amnesty International and CAGE, as well as several top political figures like Jeremy Corbyn, co-leader of Your Party and the former leader of the Labour party, as well as Zack Polanski, the leader of the Green Party of England and Wales.
Posting on X/Twitter, Corbyn described the decision to charge the activists as "terrorists" as "a historic miscarriage of justice".
He said: "Sentenced and imprisoned on grounds of 'terrorism' that no jury ever convicted them of.
"Meanwhile, the British government continues to aid and abet the greatest crime of our time.
"A historic miscarriage of justice — and a truly dark day for civil liberties in this country."
Being charged under a terrorism offence brings longer prison sentences and tighter restrictions following release, including on travel and employment.
The reveal that the Jude would seek a "terrorism connection" charge came only after a jury cleared the defendants of aggravated burglary and allegations of violent disorder were abandoned, with Head, Corner, Kamio and Rajwani being charged for criminal damage.
Corner was also convicted of causing grievous bodily harm without intent.
This is the moment that activists heard about the sentencing of four Palestine Action protesters under terror laws. 'The same sentence for murder', one person said 📽️ pic.twitter.com/aL2lvlHAam
— The National (@ScotNational) June 12, 2026
It was reported by Novara Media that the jury was not informed of the terror connection charge, and the UK media was barred from reporting on it due to to a court injunction that lifted on May 12.
Polanski described it as a "gut wrenching" decision, saying the trial demonstrates a "truly dangerous attack on the right to protest"
The Green Party leader said: "Gut wrenching to see four young people jailed for direct action against an arms supplier to Israel.
"Years in prison for protesting to save lives in Gaza, with 'terrorism' used despite no jury convicting them of it.
"A truly dangerous attack on the right to protest."
The decision has also been criticised by some backbench Labour MPs like former shadow chancellor John McDonnell.
McDonnell posted on X/Twitter that the "scale of sentences on the four young people who took direct action against the arms supplier to Israel is truly shocking.
"To impose years of imprisonment for protesting to save lives in Gaza is unjust, especially sentencing on terrorist grounds they were never convicted of by a jury".
At Woolwich Crown Court Mr Justice Johnson jailed Corner for seven years and eight months, telling him he had used “extreme and gratuitous force against a vulnerable police officer acting in the course of her duties”.
Head, who drove the prison van into the compound, was sentenced to five years in prison, Kamio was also handed a five-year jail term, and Rajwani received a prison sentence of four years and eight months.
Each defendant will also spend an extra year on licence once their prison terms have ended.
Anas Mustapha, the head of public advocacy at the human rights group CAGE, said the four had been “sentenced as terrorists for fulfilling the moral duty to prevent a genocide” and called for terrorism laws created after 9/11 to be abolished.
He added: “This is the War on Terror doing what it was always designed to do – not fighting terrorism, but manufacturing it, stretching the label onto whoever the state needs it to fit.
“Two decades ago that meant Muslims detained without charge, rendered, tortured. Today it means four people who dismantled weapons bound for a genocide.
“The Genocide Convention does not make an exception for inconvenient states – when governments fail to prevent genocide, that obligation passes to individuals, and these four accepted it.
“The architecture that sentenced them as terrorists is the same architecture built in the years after 9/11. It was always going to come for people like this. These laws were never about safety. They must be abolished.”
The judge said they had “decided to take matters into your own hands” after coming to the view that the Israeli government is committing genocide in Gaza and being “disillusioned” with legal efforts to oppose it.
He said the activists had been “reckless” about who would be injured, and had been heavily involved in organising the raid with the right of veto over each part of the plan.
