British prosecutors have sought to reinstate a “terrorism” charge against a member of Irish rap group Kneecap for allegedly displaying a flag of Lebanese group Hezbollah during a gig in London, after a judge threw out the case last year.
The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) launched a High Court challenge on Wednesday, arguing that a chief magistrate erred in September when he dismissed the case against Liam O’Hanna, also known as Liam Og O hAnnaidh in Irish, over a technical error.
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O’Hanna, who performs under the name Mo Chara, was charged with displaying the flag at a November 21, 2024, concert in London, breaching the United Kingdom’s 2000 Terrorism Act.
In written submissions unveiled in court, the CPS “submits that the Learned judge was wrong to find that the proceedings … were not instituted in the correct form”.
Kneecap – known for their politically charged lyrics and support for Palestinian rights – have said the case is an attempt to distract from what they described as British complicity in Israel’s genocide against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
The band has called the attempted prosecution of O’Hanna a “British state witch-hunt”.
“Today more Palestinians were murdered by Israel,” Kneecap wrote in a social media post on Wednesday after the court hearing.
“More homes demolished and more children dead due to cold and lack of aid not permitted to enter by Israel. That is the ONLY thing about this whole witch-hunt worth talking about,” the band said, denouncing the legal proceedings as “a waste of public time and public money”.
O’Hanna was charged in May after a video emerged from the London concert in which he allegedly displayed the Hezbollah flag, an offence he has denied.
Kneecap previously said the flag was thrown on stage during their performance and that they “do not, and have never” supported Hezbollah.
The charge against O’Hanna was thrown out in September after a court ruled it had originally been brought without the permission of the director of public prosecutions and the attorney general, as well as one day outside the six-month statutory limit.
But CPS lawyer Paul Jarvis told London’s High Court on Wednesday that permission was only required by the time O’Hanna first appeared in court, meaning the case can proceed.
O’Hanna did not attend the hearing.
But his bandmate, JJ O Dochartaigh, better known by the stage name DJ Provai, was in court alongside the band’s manager, Dan Lambert, and its lawyers.
About 100 Kneecap supporters also turned up at the court to show their support, holding Irish and Palestinian flags, singing songs and listening to speeches.
