\u201cThe judge was right to hold that he had no jurisdiction,\u201d the pair stated in a 13-page ruling, concluding \u201cno written charge was issued within six months\u201d of the alleged offence.<\/p>\n
O\u2019Hanna, named Liam Og O hAnnaidh in Irish, was charged on May 21 \u2013 six months to the day after the concert when he allegedly displayed the flag.<\/p>\n
But the Attorney-General did not approve the charge until the next day, which O\u2019Hanna\u2019s legal team argued meant it fell outside a six-month time limit.<\/p>\n
O\u2019Hanna, who performs under the name Mo Chara, welcomed the ruling.<\/p>\n
Proud of our boys <\/p>\n
\u201cYour own High Court has ruled against you,\u201d O\u2019Hanna said at a Belfast press conference, in comments aimed directly at the British Government.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe pathetic thing about this whole process is that you falsely try to label me a terrorist,\u201d he added, before accusing London of aiding various alleged crimes in the Middle East.<\/p>\n
Cheered by supporters at the event, he was joined by Kneecap bandmates JJ O Dochartaigh and Naoise O Caireallain \u2013 better known by their respective stage names DJ Provai and Moglai Bap.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis ruling again just proves that they were right all along to fight the British in the courts and once again win,\u201d said Kevin Gamble, a 44-year-old Kneecap fan at the event.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m very proud of our boys from West Belfast,\u201d added Bernie Devlin, 73, holding a Palestinian flag.<\/p>\n
Darragh Mackin, a Belfast-based solicitor representing O\u2019Hanna, said the attempted prosecution was \u201clegally laughable\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a witch hunt,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
The CPS acknowledged the High Court had \u201cclarified how the law applies\u201d to such cases, and said that it accepted \u201cthe judgment and will update our processes accordingly\u201d.<\/p>\n
O\u2019Hanna was charged after a video emerged from the London concert in which he allegedly displayed the Hezbollah flag, an offence the singer has denied.<\/p>\n
The band, whose members sing in Irish and regularly lead crowd chants in support of Palestinians in Gaza, have had multiple international concerts cancelled over their pro-Palestinian stance and other controversies.<\/p>\n
Canada barred Kneecap last year from entering the country, citing the group\u2019s alleged support for Hezbollah and the Palestinian militant group Hamas.<\/p>\n
However, their performance in Paris in September went ahead despite objections from French Jewish groups and government officials.<\/p>\n
The group also played England\u2019s legendary Glastonbury Festival in June and drew packed audiences in Tokyo in January.<\/p>\n
\u2013 Agence France-Presse<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cThe judge was right to hold that he had no jurisdiction,\u201d the pair stated in a 13-page ruling,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":325005,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[74,9092,14801,1121,6636,32294,1349,14134,102166,156,1872,71,209,2959,10937,175311,36338,123500,20409,5836,157,117,111,139,69,175310,1523,26481,175312,693,4625,37735,31451,8982,1533,6202,117584],"class_list":["post-325004","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-after","tag-against","tag-british","tag-case","tag-challenge","tag-charge","tag-court","tag-decision","tag-dismiss","tag-entertainment","tag-face","tag-from","tag-group","tag-high","tag-hunt","tag-irishlanguage","tag-judges","tag-kneecap","tag-liam","tag-lost","tag-music","tag-new","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-ohanna","tag-over","tag-prosecutors","tag-punkrap","tag-rapper","tag-singer","tag-terror","tag-terrorism","tag-victory","tag-will","tag-wins","tag-witch"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/325004","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=325004"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/325004\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/325005"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=325004"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=325004"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=325004"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}