Six UK pro-Palestinian activists go on trial over attack on Israel's Elbit factory

By Michael Holden

LONDON (Reuters) -Six British pro-Palestinian activists went on trial on Tuesday accused of attacking a factory operated by Israeli defence firm Elbit, aiming to cause as much damage as possible, with one also charged with striking a police officer with a sledgehammer.

Prosecutors said the six defendants were part of a group from the now banned protest organisation Palestine Action, which carried out the meticulously planned assault on the Elbit Systems UK facility in Bristol, southwest England, in August last year.

They intended to "cause serious damage to property and to use or threaten unlawful violence against anyone who stood in their way, if necessary with the use of weapons including sledgehammers", prosecutor Deanna Heer said.

PROSECUTION ALLEGE STEP-BY-STEP PLAN OF ATTACK

"The premises had been targeted in advance. Willing participants had been identified and a step-by-step plan of action devised and agreed upon," she said.

Charlotte Head, 29, Samuel Corner, 23, Leona Kamio, 20, Fatema Zainab Rajwani, 21, Zoe Rogers, 22, and Jordan Devlin, 31, deny charges of aggravated burglary, violent disorder and criminal damage.

Corner is also accused of causing grievous bodily harm with intent for striking the female police sergeant with a sledgehammer across the back as she faced away from him. He denies the charge.

Heer told London's Woolwich Crown Court the plan involved two teams, a "black team" and a "red team", wearing either black or red jumpsuits.

The black team's job was to threaten the security guards to allow the red team, of which the defendants were members, to break in and "cause as much damage as possible", she said.

They were all armed with sledgehammers to both cause damage and also to "threaten and damage people", Heer told the court.

Britain proscribed Palestine Action as a terrorist organisation in July, almost a year after the Elbit incident took place, making it a crime to be a member.

The judge, Jeremy Johnson, told the jury there was controversy about that decision, and whether it was lawful, but said that was irrelevant to the case.

He said many people had strong views about the war in Gaza, saying some might feel Israel was entitled to do what it had done, while others might see it as acting unlawfully or even committing acts of genocide.

"You will appreciate that it is vitally important that you judge the case on the evidence, not on the basis of what you or anyone else thinks about Palestine Action or the war in Gaza," he said.

Earlier on Tuesday, Elbit reported sharply higher third-quarter profit, fuelled by sales to Israel's military and by higher global defence spending.

(Reporting by Michael Holden, Editing by Paul Sandle and Alison Williams)