Tony Greenstein at Kingston Crown Court this morning.

A judge’s ruling in the prosecution of Jewish anti-genocide activist Tony Greenstein appears to have given the Starmer regime a green light to have officials with ‘allegiance’ to Israel make prosecution decisions.

Tony Greenstein: the prosecution… delayed

Tony Greenstein appeared at Kingston Crown Court today, charged under Section 12 of the Terrorism Act 2000 with encouraging support for a ‘proscribed’ organisation. His barrister Lawrence McNulty argued that the prosecution should be ‘stayed’, or cancelled, because of obvious pro-Israel bias on the part of Starmer’s Attorney General Richard Hermer and (then-)Solicitor General Sarah Sackman. Sackman was, until late 2024, a vice-chair of the pro-Israel ‘Jewish Labour Movement’ (JLM) and has personal history with Greenstein. Before she was solicitor general, she lobbied for Greenstein’s expulsion from the Labour party.

Sackman has described Israel as a “deeply personal and emotional” issue to her, condemned the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) arrest warrant for Benjamin Netanyahu for war crimes and worked at Israel’s Supreme Court. Her grandfather was an Israeli ambassador and she has family there. So does her former boss Hermer, who described relatives in the Israeli military as “dear family members”. As McNulty put it in his submission, this represents more connections with Israel “than you can shake a stick at”.

This might seem, to many readers, to be an open and shut case of bias that would make any decision to prosecute unsafe. But McNulty’s argument wasn’t finished. He also pointed to the case of Kombou vs Wood Green Crown Court (Kombou), in which the judge ruled that officials who stand to gain financially from a prosecution must avoid all perception of bias. Clearly, McNulty argued, the deeply Zionist Sackman in particular stood to gain by prosecuting an anti-Zionist like Greenstein.

“Allegiance”

One of the most interesting parts of the defence and prosecution arguments was in the word “allegiance”. McNulty argued that Sackman’s devotion to Israel is far more than merely a favourable opinion. Instead, it represents an “allegiance” to it. The prosecution did not challenge this assertion, instead focusing on arguing that Kombou is about financial incentive and shouldn’t be applied as case law to political incentives.

Unsurprisingly given the political context – judge Sarah Plaschkes decided to side with the prosecution. In her ruling, she affirmed that “Kombou was concerned with the prosecutor having a financial interest in the outcome”. Plaschkes also made a distinction between Hermer and Sackman ‘providing permission’ to prosecute and the CPS actually prosecuting, as if the prosecution did not depend on ‘permission’ being given and as if there was no possibility of conflicts of interest in the CPS, which used to be run by Keir Starmer:

The decision of the Solicitor General is limited to permitting and not initiating the prosecution.

To put it extremely mildly, Plaschkes’s conclusion on the issue of bias was noteworthy. Sidestepping the fact that Sackman only stepped down as JLM vice-chair in late 2024, she dismissed the evidence of bias as being too old to still be relevant:

Some of the open-source material is ten years old. These are no more than personal statements made in Sarah Sackman’s personal capacity of her capacity as an MP… or published accounts of her background and personal life, none of which when taken singly or together, demonstrate that she is incapable of discharging her constitutional and public duties solemnly and impartially.

The assertion of the appearance of bias, at best could be described as flimsy and at worst politically motivated.

Wider implications

Let’s recap that in plain language. Sackman was the vice-chair of an Israel lobby group until a little over a year ago; she demanded Tony Greenstein’s expulsion from Labour; she condemned the ICC for issuing an arrest warrant for wanted war criminal Netanyahu; the prosecution did not dispute Sackman’s “allegiance” to Israel; she considers the whole issue of Israel to be “deeply personal and emotional”.

None of that constitutes a conflict of interest. No indeed. Instead, even to assert that there is even “an appearance of bias” is “at best flimsy and at worst politically motivated”.

Hmmm.

It’s hard to see how this ruling does anything other than give the Starmer regime a green light to appoint as many ardent supporters of Israel to key positions as it wants. If they then pursue opponents of Israel’s genocide and apartheid, that’s not bias. No, it’s those who are complaining who are politically motivated, not an official signing off on an attempt to put a pensioner in jail for up to fourteen years for supporting resistance.

Plaschkes did agree the defence’s application to postpone Greenstein’s trial until a number of other relevant appeals had been decided, namely ‘ABJ & BDN’ at the Supreme Court, which also concerns supposed support or a banned resistance group, and Greenstein’s own appeals against decisions to block him from entering evidence on Israel’s oppression of the Palestinians and a report by journalist Alistair Cook. Since the prosecution had no objection to the delay, it would have been remarkable if the judge had ruled against it.

The case is now scheduled to recommence 19 August, still in Kingston.

Featured image via the Canary

By Skwawkbox

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