Hamas paraglider protesters escape punishment despite terror conviction
THREE women who glorified Hamas with images of “paragliders” days after the worst attack in Israel’s history have escaped punishment after being convicted of a terror offence.
Heba Alhayek, 29, and Pauline Ankunda, 26, “crossed the line” when they attached the images to their backs with tape, while Noimutu Olayinka Taiwo, 27, stuck one to the handle of a placard during a pro-palestinian march.
The trio displayed the images on Oct 14, seven days after the Oct 7 attack on Israel, which killed 1,200 people as Hamas terrorists crossed the border using paragliders.
At the march, Ankunda was also captured on video chanting: “france is a terror state, the UK is a terror state, Italy is a terror state.”
All three were later charged under the Terrorism Act with carrying or displaying an article to arouse reasonable suspicion that they are supporters of Hamas. They denied the charges, with lawyers arguing they were displaying images of a parachute rather than paragliders and police had “mistaken” what they saw that day.
Following a two-day trial at Westminster magistrates’ court, the trio were found guilty after prosecutors argued it was “no coincidence” the defendants were displaying the images so soon after the attack. Giving his verdict, Tan Ikram, deputy senior district judge, said the Israel-palestine conflict had been the subject of “much passion and polarisation”.
Mr Ikram agreed that the images had been “wrongly described” as a paraglider by the police and prosecution but added it “matters not” because the issue came down to what a “reasonable person” would think the picture meant.
“Seven days earlier, Hamas went into Israel with what was described by the media as paragliders,” he said. “A reasonable person would have seen and read that. I do not find a reasonable person would interpret the image merely as a symbol of freedom.”
Mr Ikram said he had “decided not to punish” the defendants, and handed the trio each a 12-month conditional discharge and ordered Alhayek and Ankunda to pay £400 in costs.
“You crossed the line, but it would have been fair to say that emotions ran very high on this issue,” he added.