A judge at the Central Criminal Court has rejected a bail application for a pro-Palestine activist allegedly involved in breaking into Britain’s largest military airbase.
Earlier this year, members of the group Palestine Action filmed themselves entering RAF Brize Norton on electric scooters, where they spray-painted two Voyager aircraft with red paint.
However, earlier this month, Counter Terror Policing South East arrested a sixth suspect, Muhammad Umer Khalid, and charged him with conspiracy to commit criminal damage and conspiracy to enter a prohibited place.
The 22-year-old has been in custody since and remains in Wormwood Scrubs Prison, where he is awaiting trial.
Rabah Kherbane, representing Khalid at the Central Criminal Court on Friday, said in his opening remarks that prison services had briefly placed Khalid in solitary confinement and barred him from showering or using a prayer mat to perform his Muslim prayers.
He argued that the lifting of Khalid’s bail application was particularly significant given his mother’s deteriorating health.
“We have circumstances in Mr Khalid’s particular case where for the first time on 3rd August, he learnt that his mother’s cancer had deteriorated from stage 1 to stage 2; so any attitude to bail conditions must now be viewed from that lens where he must tend to his mother who is unwell,” Kherbane told the court.
As with everything fascists do, the cruelty is the point.
"The court has sympathy, of course, with the family and the blow it has delivered to them.
“But the applicant knew that he was his mother’s carer, and now charged… this is something he has to bear in mind as his responsibility and the fact that the alleged victim broke previous bail conditions.”
Such unempathetic churlish behaviour. Like this person planned on his mother’s condition worsening.
Dude is an activist participating in non-violent forms of protest.
It does no good keeping people like this locked up nor does it benefit society.
Ok y’all have got to get your government to stop emulating the worst parts of the US government. I keep reading UK as US.
Jesus Christ UK.
