UK prosecutors launched a High Court challenge Wednesday to appeal a judge’s decision to throw out a charge of supporting terrorism against an Irish-language singer from the punk-rap group Kneecap.
The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) kicked off its appeal by arguing a chief magistrate had erred in September when he dismissed the case against Liam O’Hanna over a technical error.
The CPS “submits that the Learned judge was wrong to find that the proceedings against the Respondent [O’Hanna] were not instituted in the correct form”, it said in written legal submissions unveiled in court.
O’Hanna, who performs under the name Mo Chara, did not attend London’s Royal Courts of Justice for the hearing in front of two judges.
But bandmate JJ O Dochartaigh — better known by his stage name DJ Provai — did arrive early Monday alongside the band’s manager, Dan Lambert, and lawyers.
Kneecap had urged its supporters to rally outside and about 100 showed up, holding Irish and Palestinian flags, singing songs and listening to speeches by speakers including Sinn Fein MP John Finucane.
The band has called the attempted prosecution a “British state witch-hunt” and had celebrated when chief magistrate Paul Goldspring, sitting at London’s Woolwich Crown Court last year, threw out a charge of supporting terrorism brought against O’Hanna.
The CPS has accused him of displaying a flag of the proscribed Iran-backed Lebanese militant group Hezbollah at a November 2024 concert in London, breaching the UK’s 2000 Terrorism Act.
But Goldspring agreed with O’Hanna’s lawyers that the legal proceedings had not been “instigated in the correct form” due to time limits on bringing criminal charges and notifying relevant parties.
– ‘We will not be silent’ –
But the CPS, which prosecutes cases before English and Welsh courts, said it would appeal the decision “as we believe there is an important point of law which needs to be clarified”.
Kneecap has vowed to fight the appeal and “win again”, with its legal filings arguing Goldspring “was plainly correct” in his September decision.
Monday’s hearing saw lawyers for the CPS make various technical arguments and cite past cases, with O’Hanna’s legal team set to follow suit.
A decision is not expected immediately.
O’Hanna, 28, named Liam Og O Hannaidh in Irish, was charged in May when a video emerged from the London concert in which he allegedly displayed the Hezbollah flag, an offence the singer has denied.
The band, whose members sing in Irish and regularly lead crowd chants in support of the Palestinians in Gaza, have had multiple international concerts cancelled over their pro-Palestinian stance and other controversies.
Canada barred Kneecap in September from entering the country, citing the group’s alleged support for Hezbollah and the Palestinian militant group Hamas.
But their performance in Paris in September went ahead despite objections from French Jewish groups and government officials.
The group also played southwest England’s vaunted Glastonbury Festival in June and drew packed audiences in Tokyo last week.
Posting on X on January 1 about the appeal, Kneecap said: “It is the view of our legal team that there is not an iota of logic for this, it is without any sound legal basis.
“We will not be silent,” the group vowed.
O’Hanna has maintained that the band’s stand “was always about Gaza, about what happens if you dare to speak up”.
