Legal experts question UK sharing of police details in Palestine Action case with Israel

Legal experts and rights groups have raised the alarm after documents emerged suggesting the UK had shared contact details of counterterrorism police with the Israeli embassy during ongoing investigations into Palestine Action (PA) activists.

Freedom of Information (FOI) disclosures revealed an email sent by the Attorney General’s Office (AGO) to the Israeli embassy that appeared to be sharing contact details of the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) and the "SO15" Counter Terrorism Command, which is overseeing the investigation of 28 PA activists - including the "Filton 18" and the "Instro 10".

The email, which is redacted apart from the subject heading: "to Israelis re CPS/SO15 contact details” was sent by Nicola Smith, the head of international law at the AGO, to Daniela Grudsky Ekstein, Israel’s deputy ambassador to the UK, in the weeks following the first arrests of the “Filton 18” activists in August 2024.

The Filton 18 are currently held in remand after being arrested on terrorism charges in connection with an action in August 2024 when activists drove a modified van into the research and development hub of UK-based Israeli arms company, Elbit Systems, in Filton, Bristol.

Ten activists were initially arrested at the scene in August 2024.

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Two months after the email, 10 more activists were rounded up in raids by counterterrorism police, with eight of them charged and remanded to prison.

In response to a request for comment by MEE, the AGO said: “It has been routine under successive governments for AGO to help embassies get in contact with the relevant authorities purely for purposes of sharing information that could be relevant to a case."

“Decisions to prosecute, convict and sentence are, rightly, made independently of Government by the Crown Prosecution Service, juries and judges respectively," the statement added.

PA warns the revelations suggest political interference - a violation of the CPS’s principles - and are calling for charges against the activists to be dropped.

Anas Mustapha, head of public advocacy at CAGE International, said in a statement that the alleged Israeli interference in the case "is deeply concerning and amounts to an abuse of process".

"Every additional day the Filton 18 remain detained is a violation of their fundamental rights. They must be freed, and the case against them must be dropped immediately," Mustapha said.

'The [sharing of these documents] is a complete corruption of the legal system'

Spokesperson, Palestine Action  

Simon Pook, a solicitor representing several of the Filton 18 activists, told Middle East Eye: "It  raises questions as to why the correspondence is so heavily redacted. It calls into question the transparency of the communications between the attorney general and the Israeli embassy.

“I’d like to know what, if any, reference was made to any of those arrests in the communication, and were those arrests the result of a request from another government?” Pook added.

The email sent on 9 September, in the weeks following the first arrests, appears to be a follow-up to a meeting held on the 28 August between Smith, Ekstein, the embassy's counsellor of political affairs, Yosef Zilberman, and AGO director Douglas Wilson. 

A read-out of the meeting between Smith and Ekstein was heavily redacted.

“There was no correspondence before this, so the logical conclusion is that it was a follow-up on the meeting,” the PA spokesperson said. “It implies it must have been discussed in this meeting.”

“Everyone already knew there was something political happening behind the scenes, this gives us a glimpse into the fact that there is something going on and the Israelis are very likely involved,” they added.

“It’s a complete corruption of the legal system".

'Terrorism connection'

While the defendants were not charged under the Terrorism Act, CPS said in a press release that it would argue in court that the offences have a “terrorism connection”, a term which refers to a classification of offences not included in the Terrorism Act but which according to the CPS website, ensures that the charges "properly reflect the conduct concerned".

Offences with a terrorism connection can carry heftier sentences.

The use of counterterrorism legislation in the case, which has been condemned by four UN special rapporteurs, has resulted in harsher detention conditions for the 18, including prolonged pre-trial detention and restrictions on their mail correspondence.

“It’s unprecedented, there hasn’t been a case like this where people have been accused of having a terrorism connection,” a Palestine Action spokesperson said.

Just days after the revelations, 10 more Palestine Action activists, known as the "Instro 10," became the second group to face charges with a terrorism connection in relation to an action in June 2024 targeting Instro Precision, a weapons manufacturer, allegedly causing over £1m ($1.34m) in damages. 

Unlike the Filton 18, the Instro 10 were not arrested under the Terrorism Act, but both groups of defendants are facing the same charges, including aggravated burglary, criminal damage and violent disorder.

"The terrorism definition is broad. If it's serious property damage of an ideological cause, they claim that we're intimidating Elbit or influencing the government. That's all they need," the Palestine Action spokesperson said.

According to Palestine Action, eight of the activists are on bail, while two of them are in the Filton 18 case.

Palestine Action reported that the police operation targeting both the Filton 18 and the Instro 10 is known as "operation recomply".

Amnesty International issued a statement on X expressing concern about "reports of a further misuse of anti-terrorism powers against Palestine Action".

"This is now the second instance in which direct action protest has been subject to the UK’s overly broad terrorism laws, which are wide open to misuse and abuse. We will continue to monitor developments in this case closely," the statement read.

An abusive process

Palestine Action also highlighted that the correspondence coincides with the counterterrorism police raid targeting journalist Asa Winstanley.

“What is going on there? Why did that happen a few weeks after the deputy Israel ambassador was in contact with the CPS and counterterrorism police?” the spokesperson said.

Journalist Sarah Wilkinson was arrested by counterterrorism police in a dawn raid on her home shortly before the correspondence on 29 August 2024, while journalist Richard Medhurst was detained under the Terrorism Act upon arrival at London Heathrow Airport on 15 August.

On 30 August, Palestine Action co-founder Richard Bernard was charged with violating the Terrorism Act - although he was arrested in October 2023.

“A lot of things happened around the same time,” the spokesperson said.

PA have called for a full investigation into the correspondence, and for the release of the 18 activists.

The group highlighted that the potential political interference in the case could constitute a violation of the CPS’s General Principle 2.1, which stipulates that, "Prosecutors must be free to carry out their professional duties without political interference and must not be affected by improper or undue pressure or influence from any source."

“Any political pressure amounts to an abusive process, and we have evidence of that, so they shouldn't be continuing these prosecutions. The Filton 18 should not be in prison right now, but especially not in light of this," the Palestine Action spokesperson said.

“I would like the attorney general to release unredacted material to the solicitors, to show that, in fact, this is a trial that hasn't been influenced in any way, and that the actions of the police and of the Crown Prosecution Service are independent as we expect them to be,” Pook told MEE.

“Any questions should be answered and we should have documents before us if they are relating to any case that's before the courts,” he added.

Palestine Action say the documents are the latest in a series of disclosures detailing apparent interference in cases concerning the group.

Past disclosures revealed apparent requests by the Israeli embassy for intervention in individual cases. In August 2023, documents seen by the Guardian indicated that Israeli embassy officials pushed for AGO director Douglas Wilson to interfere with court cases relating to protesters.

While the disclosed emails and meeting minutes are heavily redacted and specifics of the officials' demands are unclear, Wilson refers to the “operational independence and the sensitivities of engaging with them on individual cases”.

Wilson was also present at the meeting in August 2024 between Smith and Ekstein.

MEE asked the AGO why the FOI response was so heavily redacted, but did not receive a response by the time of publication.

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