Nigel Farage has blasted a judge who gave women found guilty of terror offences a 12-month conditional discharge. Heba Alhayek, 29, Noimutu Olayinka Taiwo, 27, and Pauline Ankunda, 26, were seen at a pro-Palestine protest in London displaying images of Hamas paragliders who carried out the October 7 Israel attacks just a week after the deadly incident.
The three were charged under the Terrorism Act and found guilty by a jury on Tuesday, February 13, of a terror offence for supporting a banned organisation following a two-day trial at Westminster Magistrates Court.
Judge Tan Ikram concluded the three were not seeking to show support for Hamas and ordered a 12-month conditional discharge, which Mr Farage has slammed.
The politician-turned-TV presenter criticised the judge’s ruling, saying he didn’t “feel comfortable” with his conclusions.
Judge Ikram told the court on Tuesday that, while the trio has “crossed the line”, he had “decided not to punish” the trio, as their “lesson has been well learned”.
Speaking on his GB News slot, Mr Farage disagreed with the judge’s conclusions and accused him of going against the jury’s verdict.
He said: “It almost seems to me that we have a judge here who has gone against the guilty verdict of the jury.
“Maybe I’ve made a controversial comment, maybe I’ll be slammed for saying it – that’s how it looks to me, and I don’t feel comfortable about it.”
The trio was photographed attending a pro-Palestine protest on December 14 with images of the Hamas paragliders taped to their coats and a placard.
Prosecutors argued it was “no coincidence” they were seen with the images just one week following the deadly Re’im music festival massacre.
Hamas militants killed approximately 1,200 Israelis in the attack, the government has claimed, and a further 240 were abducted and taken to Gaza.
Judge Ikram said a “reasonable person” would have read about the massacre and that he did not “find a reasonable person would interpret the image merely as a symbol of freedom”.
But he added that there was “no evidence” the defendants were Hamas supporters or that they were “seeking to show support for them”.
The Crown Prosecution Service argued that displaying the images amounted to the “glorification of the actions” of Hamas.
Lawyers for the defendants had said they were displaying images of a parachute emoji, not paragliders, and had “mistaken” what they saw.
Mark Summers KC, the lawyer for Ms Alhayek and Ms Ankunda, said “an internet group with an agenda” had circulated the idea that the image was a paraglider.
