Palestine Action defendants acquitted of aggravated burglary over arms factory raid
Palestine Action defendants in February 2026 trial: Top row from left- Jordan Devlin, Charlotte Head, Zoe Rogers, Samuel Corner. Bottom row, from left – Leona Kamio, Zainab Rajwan
Katherine Hearst reports in Middle East Eye on 4 February 2026:
A UK court has found six Palestine Action activists not guilty of aggravated burglary following a break-in at an Israeli-owned arms factory.
On Wednesday, after more than 36 hours of deliberations, jurors at Woolwich Crown Court acquitted Leona Kamio, 30, Samuel Corner, 23, Fatema Rajwani ,21, Zoe Rogers, 22, Jordan Devlin, 31, and Charlotte Head, of charges of aggravated burglary.
All six defendants had denied the charges of aggravated burglary, criminal damage, and violent disorder following the raid at an Elbit Systems’ plant near Bristol on 6 August 2024.
During the trial, the prosecution alleged that the six defendants entered the factory with sledgehammers, intending, if needed, to injure and incapacitate security guards. But the defendants disputed that the sledgehammers were “weapons of offence”, and insisted they were intended only to damage property.
As the verdicts were being read, the defendants held hands and embraced in the dock, as families and supporters cheered and wept.
The jury did not convict defendants Head, Corner and Kamio of violent disorder and acquitted Devlin, Rogers and Rajwani of the same charge. The jury was also hung on charges of criminal damage – despite five of the defendants admitting to destroying weapons and equipment belonging to Elbit Systems during the break-in.
Additionally, jurors did not return a verdict on the charge faced by Corner of grievous bodily harm with intent for striking a police officer with a sledgehammer.
The six defendants have been held for around 18 months on remand- exceeding standard UK custodial time limits.
Five of the defendants were granted bail; Corner was remanded in custody. Previous applications had been repeatedly refused on the basis that the judge believed there were “substantial grounds” for believing that the defendants would reoffend, as their “mindsets” had not changed. Mr Justice Johnson said the verdicts did not change that fact, but acknowledged that the defendants had spent a “substantial time on remand”, and that the risk could be “appropriately managed through the imposition of bail conditions”.