Prosecutors are accusing four direct action protestors, who are part of the ‘Filton 25’, of destroying 40 significant military assets, including quadcopter drones, inside Elbit’s research and development centre in Filton, Bristol. The weapons facility is owned by Israel’s biggest arms firm, Elbit Systems, which produces 85% of Israel’s military drone fleet.
The prosecution are alleging that the protestors caused £1.2million worth of damage to Elbit Systsems. The majority of the costs claimed is for the alleged damage of 40 military assets.Mira Hammad, representing Leona Kamio, referred to a damage report provided by Elbit for the sentencing, saying in open court that Justice Johnson will have seen the list of damage, which includes: “Kestrel drone, the Magni X drone, Elbit’s THOR HELIOS and THOR LEGION X drones”. She also mentioned reference to six redacted “drone systems”, which have been separately identified as Easy Aerial Drones, and she referenced alleged damage to “Commander Heads Out Displays”.
Responding to the alleged damaged Israeli weaponry, Andrew Feinstein, an arms trade export and director of Shadow World Investigations said: “These quadcopter drones are key instruments of genocide, used by the Israeli forces in Gaza for surveillance, targeting and to kill. Had they not been destroyed by these brave actionists, they could have easily ended up facilitating yet more killing and devastation. To call those who disabled them terrorists is a perverse distortion of the truth. The real outrage is the continued arming and enabling of a genocidal military campaign that has devastated an entire civilian population. Those who smashed these drones to pieces were not spreading terror – they were trying to prevent it.”