https://www.declassifieduk.org/palestine-activist-jailed-as-terrorist-speaks-out/

Exclusive: We spoke to Ellie Kamio, one of the first people in British history to be sentenced as a terrorist for property damage

“Other than hexing the man, I really wasn’t surprised”.

This is how Leona Kamio, known as Ellie, describes what was going through her mind when a judge announced she would be sentenced as a terrorist alongside three co-defendants earlier this month.

Kamio, a 30-year-old nursery teacher, had been convicted of criminal damage in connection with a Palestine Action raid on an Israeli arms firm in Filton, Bristol, in August 2024.

The jury that tried her had not been informed that any convictions could later carry a “terrorism connection”, she tells Declassified from Bronzefield prison in her first interview since being convicted.

During that trial, the defendants were also not allowed to explain why they targeted Elbit Systems or even say the word “genocide”, stripping the action of all context.

Kamio and her three co-defendants, Charlotte Head, Fatema Zainab Rajwani, and Samuel Corner, have now been sentenced to a combined total of more than 25 years in prison. Two others, Zoe Rogers and Jordan Devlin, were found not guilty.

In the morning before the sentencing hearing, Kamio felt that the judge, Mr Justice Johnson, already “had pre-written a crazy sentence”. 

The “terrorism connection”, says Kamio, means the activists will serve at least two-thirds of their prison sentences, though it is “likely we’ll have to sit out the whole five-year term”.

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Continues at https://www.declassifieduk.org/palestine-activist-jailed-as-terrorist-speaks-out/