{"id":44515,"date":"2025-09-26T11:42:11","date_gmt":"2025-09-26T11:42:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/44515\/"},"modified":"2025-09-26T11:42:11","modified_gmt":"2025-09-26T11:42:11","slug":"prosecution-of-kneecaps-liam-og-o-hannaidh-dismissed-in-london-court-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/44515\/","title":{"rendered":"Prosecution of Kneecap\u2019s Liam \u00d3g \u00d3 hAnnaidh dismissed in London court \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall b-it-article-body__text--left\">The case in London against the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/kneecap\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/kneecap\/\">Kneecap<\/a> rapper <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/mo-chara\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/mo-chara\/\">Liam \u00d3g \u00d3 hAnnaidh<\/a> has been dismissed. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">On Friday morning Mr \u00d3 hAnnaidh won an application to have the case thrown out over a delay in issuing the charge.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall b-it-article-body__text--left\">Judge Paul Goldspring dismissed the case at a hearing in Woolwich Crown Court. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall b-it-article-body__text--left\">Mr \u00d3 hAnnaidh had been accused by British authorities of showing support for a proscribed organisation by draping himself in a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/hizbullah\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/hizbullah\/\">Hizbullah<\/a> flag at a gig in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/london\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/london\/\">London<\/a> last November.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Mr \u00d3 hAnnaidh, who performs as Mo Chara in the Belfast rap trio, had yet to enter a plea in the case, but he had publicly indicated that he intended to fight the charge.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" data-chromatic=\"ignore\" alt=\"Liam &#xD3;g &#xD3; hAnnaidh and supporters celebrating after Friday's court ruling. Photograph: Mark Paul\" class=\"c-image\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/4G5CL5MRWFCTZIVEIFD4LIEBSQ.jpg\"   width=\"800\" height=\"600\"\/>Liam \u00d3g \u00d3 hAnnaidh and supporters celebrating after Friday&#8217;s court ruling. Photograph: Mark Paul <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall b-it-article-body__text--left\">At a previous hearing in August, his lawyers argued that the charge against him was issued a day beyond an official deadline. Prosecution lawyers denied this.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The judge had indicated that if Mr \u00d3 hAnnaidh\u2019s lawyers were shown to be correct, the case against him would be immediately dismissed on Friday. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall b-it-article-body__text--left\">If the jurisdiction ruling had gone against the Irish man, the case would have proceeded, and he would have had to enter a plea. Had he pleaded not guilty, a trial would have been set for a later date.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall b-it-article-body__text--left\">Friday\u2019s hearing was moved to Woolwich Crown Court, in east London, following flooding at Westminster Magistrates Court, where the case had previously been scheduled. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">More to follow <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The case in London against the Kneecap rapper Liam \u00d3g \u00d3 hAnnaidh has been dismissed. On Friday morning&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":44516,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[93,61,60,10366,10367],"class_list":{"0":"post-44515","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-ie","10":"tag-ireland","11":"tag-kneecap","12":"tag-mo-chara"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44515","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44515"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44515\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44516"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44515"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44515"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44515"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}