{"id":375125,"date":"2026-01-17T11:58:49","date_gmt":"2026-01-17T11:58:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/375125\/"},"modified":"2026-01-17T11:58:49","modified_gmt":"2026-01-17T11:58:49","slug":"five-pro-palestinian-activists-plead-not-guilty-over-uk-airbase-break-in-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/375125\/","title":{"rendered":"Five pro-Palestinian activists plead not guilty over UK airbase break-in | News"},"content":{"rendered":"

The activists \u2060pleaded not guilty to damaging property for a purpose prejudicial to the interests or safety of the UK.<\/p>\n

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Published On 16 Jan 202616 Jan 2026<\/p>\n

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Five pro-Palestinian activists have pleaded not \u200dguilty to breaking into a British military airbase<\/a> and damaging two planes in \u2060protest against the UK\u2019s support for Israel\u2019s war in Gaza.<\/p>\n

The five are accused of breaking into the Brize Norton Royal Air Force base in central England in \u200dJune and spraying red paint over two Voyager aircraft used for refuelling and transport.<\/p>\n

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The campaign group Palestine Action, which has since been banned by the government, said it was behind the incident.<\/p>\n

Lewie Chiaramello, Jon Cink, Amy Gardiner-Gibson, Daniel Jeronymides-Norie and Muhammad \u200cUmer Khalid appeared on Friday at London\u2019s Old Bailey \u200ccourt by videolink from prison.<\/p>\n

They \u2060pleaded not guilty to damaging property for a purpose \u200cprejudicial to the interests or safety of the United Kingdom. Their trial is due \u200dto start in January 2027.<\/p>\n

No applications for bail were made, despite it having been one of five\u00a0key demands<\/a> put forward by the activists. The others included the right to a fair trial \u2013 which they say includes the release of documents related to \u201cthe ongoing witch-hunt of activists and campaigners\u201d \u2013 ending censorship of their communications, \u201cde-proscribing\u201d Palestine Action and shutting down Elbit Systems, which operates several UK factories.<\/p>\n

Palestine Action launched in July 2020 and describes itself as a movement \u201ccommitted to ending global participation in Israel\u2019s genocidal and apartheid regime\u201d. The UK parliament voted in favour<\/a>\u00a0of proscribing the group on July 2, 2025, classifying it as a \u201cterrorist\u201d organisation.<\/p>\n

More than 1,600 arrests linked to support for the proscribed group were made in the three months following the ban\u2019s introduction. The ban has been challenged in court.<\/p>\n

Hunger strike<\/p>\n

This week, Chiaramello was one of three activists allegedly linked to Palestine Action who ended their hunger strike in prison, according to campaign group Prisoners for Palestine.<\/p>\n

Chiaramello had fasted every other day, as he is a Type 1 diabetic, for 46 days.<\/p>\n

Cink and Gardiner-Gibson \u2013 the latter now known as Amu Gib, also took part in a hunger strike in detention.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have never trusted the government with our lives, and we will not start now. We will be the ones to decide how we give our lives to justice and liberation,\u201d Gardiner-Gibson said in a statement issued by the group on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

One remand prisoner, Umer Khalid, continues to refuse food.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The activists \u2060pleaded not guilty to damaging property for a purpose prejudicial to the interests or safety of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":375126,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[591,59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-375125","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-europe","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/375125","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=375125"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/375125\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/375126"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=375125"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=375125"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=375125"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}