Yvette Cooper wrote Palestine Action article despite CPS warning it could affect trial | UK news

It was revealed that Yvette Cooper wrote a newspaper column about Palestine Action despite warnings from prosecutors that this action could undermine criminal proceedings against six activists from the group.

The then home secretary wrote the column justifying the ban on Palestine Action, despite the Crown Prosecution Service saying it could unfairly influence a trial over the break-in of an Israeli arms manufacturer’s factory in 2024.

Following a retrial, four of the defendants were convicted in connection with last week’s raid on the Elbit Systems UK facility near Bristol. It can now be reported that defense lawyers are seeking to halt the trial alleging an abuse of process, claiming Cooper’s column in the Observer was “an egregious example of derogatory reporting that directly interfered with the court process.”

The article, published on August 17, said the accusations against Palestine Movement activists contained a “terrorism connection” and also cited violence, intimidation, and “disturbing information” about future attacks.

Defense lawyers, in their written statements claiming that a fair trial would be impossible, said that the article “contained insinuations, on the one hand, it said that many important details could not be made public yet, and on the other hand, it conveyed some of these details itself.”

In his pre-trial ruling last November, Mr Justice Johnson said: “It must be accepted that the home secretary was specifically advised that continuing the article might prejudice those proceedings and that it continued anyway… The CPS made representations to the home secretary about the risk of bias. As a result, the home secretary took the action he did and the public statements he made knowing that those proceedings existed and that there might be a question as to the impact of his conduct and statements on those proceedings.”

However, Johnson dismissed the defense application as an abuse of process, saying: “The decision to ban Palestine Action was highly controversial and required public justification. It is not surprising that the Government sought to publicly justify its decision and based it loosely (without naming individuals) on the activities of Palestine Action, including those that resulted in these cases.”

“In doing so, the home secretary ran the risk of undermining these proceedings, but this is different from deliberately breaching a reporting restriction order.”

In arguing that there were “inaccurate and irredeemably biased public statements made by the government in trying to justify the ban,” defense lawyers cited other articles, including a report in the Times in which Interior Ministry officials alleged that Iran could finance Palestine Action. The Home Office later distanced itself from the claim, which Johnson described as “misleading”.

The defense team also alleged an abuse of process in bringing terrorism-related charges against the defendants, arguing that the authorities wanted to ban Palestine Action and were “aware that this could not be done without bringing terrorism-related charges”. During the trial, the jury was not told about the alleged terrorism link, which could have resulted in Charlotte Head, 29, Samuel Corner, 23, Leona Kamio, 30, and Fatema Rajwani, 21, receiving much tougher sentences for criminal damage on June 12.

The third and final justification for abuse of process was the alleged “collusion on the ban between the government and the state of Israel, Elbit Systems and the pro-Israel lobby,” referring to meetings and/or communications involving the named parties.

Johnson ruled that there was no political interference in the impeachment decision and that communications with groups outside the government did not come close to detecting improper conduct.

A Ministry of Internal Affairs spokesman said: “The judge concluded that the article did not prevent a fair trial from taking place.

“At the trial, four Palestine Movement members were found guilty of criminal damage and one was found guilty of grievous bodily harm.”