Two feminine protesters accused of ‘celebrating’ Hamas by sporting photographs of paragliders initially advised police that they had been cellotaped to their backs by strangers earlier than admitting to attaching them themselves, a courtroom heard in the present day.
Heba Alhayek, 29, and Pauline Ankunda, 26, claimed below interview that somebody on the demonstration in London ‘who was not recognized to them’ had caught the pictures to their backs.
But they later modified their statements and admitted that they had connected them themselves, Westminster Magistrates’ Court was advised.
They displayed the pictures on October 14, prosecutors allege, simply seven days after militants from Hamas used paragliders to enter Israel from Gaza on October 7 earlier than killing greater than 1,000 Israelis. Hamas is banned as a terror organisation within the UK.
Their co-defendant Noimutu Olayinka Taiwo, 27, caught a picture of a Hamas paraglider to the deal with of a placard, it’s alleged.
Noimutu Olayinka Taiwo, 27, arrives at Westminster Magistrates Court in the present day for a trial the place she will probably be accused of indicating assist for banned organisation Hamas
Heba Alhayek, 29, has been charged with the identical offence below the Terrorism Act
Pauline Ankunda, 26, outdoors Westminster Magistrates Court. Like her co-defendants she denies the fees towards her
The trio’s show of the pictures was extensively condemned when footage of the demonstration was printed on social media, their trial heard.
They are all charged below the Terrorism Act with carrying or displaying an article to arouse affordable suspicion that they’re supporters of banned organisation Hamas.
They deny the fees.
Prosecutor Brett Weaver advised the courtroom: ‘The displaying of those photographs may very well be considered as celebrating the usage of the paragliders tactic.
‘They had them on show for a big time period.
‘Each of them would have been in a position to see what the others had been doing.’
After the Metropolitan Police launched a social media attraction to seek out them, Alhayek and Ankunda handed themselves in to Croydon Police Station, the courtroom heard.
‘The defendants accepted that it was they who fastened the pictures to their again versus being utilized by another person,’ stated Mr Weaver.
‘They acknowledged that they didn’t see the pictures as being supportive of Hamas.’
Ankunda and Alhayek had the pictures sellotaped to their backs
The offence the ladies are accused of is opposite to part 13(1) of the Terrorism Act 2000
When arrested and interviewed below warning, Taiwo claimed to have been handed the placard and never paid correct consideration to the ‘blurry picture’ it displayed, the courtroom heard.
‘She denied being a member of Hamas or any proscribed organisation,’ stated the prosecutor.
‘She accepted that she was current on the demonstration on 14 October and was handed the placard whereas she was there.
‘She had not paid consideration to what was fastened to the placard because it was a blurry picture. She stated she believed it to be an emblem of liberation and peace.’
Alyayek and Anjunda, of Upper Norwood, and Taiwo, of south Norwood, all deny sporting or carrying an article supporting a proscribed terrorist organisation
The trial continues.