Filton 24: In husks of killing machines the jury saw genocide

I was on my way to Woolwich Crown Court with my family to spend the day with the families of the Filton 24 as we came into the fourth week of jury deliberations in the first trial. The first six defendants, Charlotte Head, Fatema Zainab Rajwani, Jordan Devlin, Zoe Rogers, Leona Kamio and Samuel Corner were facing three counts of aggravated burglary, criminal damage and violent disorder after having broken into the Bristol site of the Israeli weapons manufacturer Elbit Systems.

We were halfway to the court when my wife shouted that after weeks of waiting for the jury to deliberate, the six had won.

They received full acquittals by the jury of the most serious count of aggravated burglary. Zoe, Fatema Zainab and Jordan were acquitted of violent disorder, and the remainder of the charges the jury refused to convict any of the defendants.

This result was monumental in its significance. The six had been caught in the factory itself, with sledgehammers that were used to destroy the weapons being built to continue to genocide of the Palestinian people in Gaza. They broke apart military grade drones and quadcopters, the quadcopter a machine produced by Elbit Systems to fly around Gaza, emitting the sounds of Palestinian women and children crying, so that Palestinian adults are lured into the open – only to be murdered in the streets.

These machines weaponise the love Palestinians have for one another, a desire to save every life, to kill them dead in the streets.

The trial itself began in mid-November 2025, lasting until after the winter break when the jury would deliberate for almost four weeks with a constant series of delays. It was difficult to know how the jury would vote, but those in the public gallery watching the proceedings felt there were good indications from the trial itself as the security guards and police officers came across as dishonest in their testimony.

The jury seemed to really be listening to the arguments being presented by the defence. This was despite the judge. From the beginning, the defendants were interrupted in the trial each time they attempted to speak about Elbit Systems as a weapons manufacturer and its ties to the ongoing genocide in Gaza. A situation emerged where the defendants could speak about going into the weapons manufacturer, but not explain why this particular weapons factory was central to their case.

The defence were forced to rely on giving evidence from the dock – a tactic that most defence lawyers frown upon as it opens the defendant to cross examination by prosecutors. However, in this circumstance, where the six were caught inside the factory having destroyed the weapons being produced, their only way to reach the jury about the genocide was through the giving of testimony themselves.

The youngest of the defendants was Fatema Zainab, at 21 years old explained to the court how she understood the role that weapons leaving the UK play in the ongoing genocide of the Palestinian people – and that she wasn’t covering her face before the action because she knew that her taking part would lead to her arrest.

A year older than Fatema Zainab, Zoe explained to the court her motivations through a poem she wrote: “When they ask me why I did it, I tell them about the children…But I never forget to say that it was love, not hate, that called me.”

The evidence given by five of the six defendants and the accompanying summations by the barristers seemed to have an impact on the jury – while it is impossible to tell how the jury might deliberate and how they might choose to vote, those in the court could see that many were very much moved by the stories of these young actionists.

The judge explicitly stated to the jury, that if a defendant felt morally justified in doing what they did to prevent a genocide, then that would still not amount to a lawful excuse before the law. The judge, effectively, instructed the jury to act only on the basis that the defendants were found having trespassed into the factory site, having damaged property there.

Yet, the story of the genocide, the story of the mass murder of the Palestinian people, appeared to have moved the jury to acquit on the most serious charge, and refuse to convict on the other charges. Between the genocide and the imposed attempt to confine them to the law, the jury chose to stand with the defendants, and more importantly, with the Palestinian people.

When we arrived at the court, it was to scenes of pure jubilation. Scenes that we have rarely seen in the context of the movement for Palestinian solidarity. The families were in the warm embrace of one another as after 18 months, the prospect of the defendants being released became real. Bail applications would be submitted that very afternoon.

At a human level

Jury trials are not perfect. Juries represent the parts of the us that are impacted by the world we live in and the information we are fed from a political, media and market propaganda that dictates how we are supposed to understand the world we live in.

Still, the jury represents something profound about how twelve people, brought together, can at times think through the complexities of the law at a human level, and make a determination on the guilt or innocence of a person beyond legalistic jargon.

One of the findings of the Lammy Review, was that juries are far less likely to act based on their biases as a collective, than an individual magistrate – for instance, black women are 22% more likely to be convicted of a crime than white women for the same crime – a staggeringly high differential.

To remove juries, is to remove the ability for defendants to be understood holistically, to have a group of their peers not only understand the context within which the law is applied, but who we are as human beings.

It’s why more juries, in so many of the direct action cases for Palestine (as documented in CAGE International’s report Putting Bodies on the Line), are choosing to acquit actionists – seeing the genocide for what it is – the ultimate crime.

It is also part of the reason why we have witnessed a constellation of pro-Zionist organisations trying to undermine this outcome and jury trials – as they know the general public stands with Palestine and the bravery of the actionists.

What perhaps makes the jury trial even more profound, is how its embedded nature in British common law travelled over hundreds of years from North Africa, as Maliki scholars instituted the notion of the lafif in the eleventh century.

As John A Makdisi has highlighted, the Maliki jurisprudential school at that time could not ascertain the credibility of witnesses, and so devised a system of twelve people from a locality to help ascertain boundary disputes as a unanimous verdict. This practice travelled with Muslim merchants from North Africa (modern day Morocco) to Sicily, from there to France, finally making its way into English common law.

There is something remarkable and transcendental in this acknowledgement, that a process of finding justice that involves the everyday person, began its journey in the Muslim world, found its way into our common law understanding of justice, and is now playing a role in making a higher determination of what the law should be, not what it is.

The jury in the first Filton trial made it clear that they were willing to see beyond the narrow criminal charges put before them, they were able to see past those charges and see the genocide. This remarkable result is significant, because it reminds us that everyday people will always exercise their conscience when faced with making a decision on the harms they see in the world.

The facts of the criminal case were clear, the defendants were caught red-handed – but between their criminalisation and the genocide, the jury stood for what is right.

Dr Asim Qureshi is the Research Director of the advocacy group CAGE and has authored a number of books detailing the impact of the global War on Terror.

Follow him on Instagram: @asimqcageint

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Opinions expressed in this article remain those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The New Arab, its editorial board or staff.