UK Activists Convicted of Endangering Safety by Blocking Deportation Flight - Reports
Fifteen UK activists, who stopped a deportation flight carrying undocumented migrants from leaving Stansted Airport in March 2017, were found guilty of compromising the airport's safety, something which constitutes a terrorist offense that prescribes a life sentence, media reported on Monday.
According to The Guardian newspaper, following a nine-week trial, a jury at Chelmsford Crown Court found the End Deportations activists guilty of disruption airport services under the 1990 Aviation and Maritime Security Act.
The Titan Airways Boeing 767, chartered by the UK Home Office, was expected to deliver 60 people to Nigeria, Ghana and Sierra Leone, but the activists prevented the aircraft from taking off.
Prosecutors said that the incident resulted in numerous flights being diverted to other airports and thousands of passengers having their journeys delayed, the publication said.
All the defendants had pleaded not guilty.
"We are guilty of nothing more than intervening to prevent harm. The real crime is the government's cowardly, inhumane and barely legal deportation flights and the unprecedented use of terror law to crack down on peaceful protest. We must challenge this shocking use of draconian legislation, and continue to demand an immediate end to these secretive deportation charter flights and a full independent public inquiry into the government's 'hostile environment," the group said in a statement after the verdict was read out, as quoted by the media outlet.
On March 18, 2017, the activists cut a hole in the airport's perimeter fence, approached the aircraft ready as it was getting ready to take off and surrounded the plane. Prior to the arrival of the police, the activists were able to display banners protesting against forced deportation flights.