UK court clears woman of voicing support for Hamas in university speech

A London court has cleared a British woman of supporting Palestinian group Hamas in a speech she gave outside her university in 2023.

The jury at the Central Criminal Court, more commonly known as the Old Bailey, on Friday found Sarah Cotte, 22, not guilty of expressing support for the group that’s designated a “terrorist” organisation under UK law.

Public prosecutors had alleged that Cotte voiced support for Hamas two days after the group led the deadly attacks on Israel on October 7, 2023.

During a speech she gave outside the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London at the time, she expressed “unconditional solidarity” with the Palestinian resistance, the court was told. Prosecutors claimed this was a “thinly veiled reference” to Hamas.

Cotte repeatedly rejected attempts to equate the two, telling the court: “I don’t support Hamas and I have never supported Hamas. I was supporting the right to resist.”

Speaking to Al Jazeera after the verdict on Friday, Cotte said the court’s decision was a “testament to how people are feeling about British support for Zionism”.

“I never condemned the right to armed struggle in Palestine,” Cotte said. “I didn’t let them corner me and make this a conversation about what Zionists want to talk about.”

Instead, she said, “I used it as a platform to talk about what I thought was important, which was the Palestinian struggle, British support for Zionism and our rights as people of conscience.”