Westminster Magistrates Court in London court has found three local women guilty of supporting terrorism but opted not to punish them because 'emotions' had 'run very high' at the time of their offense, reports the Daily Mail.
Heba Alhayek, 29, Pauline Ankunda, 26, and Noimutu Olayinka Taiwo, 27, participated in a pro-Palestinian march in mid-October last year, wearing images of paragliders on their clothing; Hamas terrorists used paragliders in the October 7 attack. Hamas is banned as a terrorist organization in the United Kingdom.
Throughout the investigation, the women denied being supporters of Hamas but later in court admitted that they did indeed support the terror group.
The Crown Prosecution Service argued that displaying the images amounted to "glorifying the actions" of Hamas. The judge decided not to punish the women and gave them a 12-month conditional discharge instead on the basis that he did not believe they were true Hamas supporters.
