Three people have been found guilty of a terror offence after displaying images of paragliders at a pro-Palestine march in London, in the wake of Hamas’s cross-border massacre in Israel.
Heba Alhayek, 29, and Pauline Ankunda, 26, were accused of attaching images of paragliders to their backs, while Noimutu Olayinka Taiwo, 27, is said to have stuck one to the handle of a placard – seven days after militants from Hamas used paragliders to enter Israel from Gaza on 7 October.
But a lawyer representing two of the defendants had said police were “mistaken” about what they saw that day, and that the images were in fact of cartoon parachutes, “a well known nationalist symbol of peace”.
Giving his verdict at Westminster Magistrates’ Court on Tuesday, Deputy Senior District Judge Tan Ikram said: “Seven days earlier, Hamas went into Israel with what was described by the media as paragliders. 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. I want to be clear, there’s no evidence that any of these defendants are supporters of Hamas, or were seeking to show support for them.”
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