After uproar, UK prosecutors to seek retrial for Elbit attackers acquitted by jury

After six British pro-Palestinian activists were acquitted last week of aggravated burglary over a 2024 raid on Israeli defense firm Elbit’s factory, causing a public outcry, the British Crown Prosecution Service said yesterday it will seek a retrial in the case.

The verdict last week cleared members of the now-banned group Palestine Action of aggravated burglary after they attacked the company’s UK facility in Bristol, causing about 1 million pounds’ ($1.4 million) worth of damage and striking a police officer on duty with a sledgehammer.

The defendants said they were simply motivated to destroy weapons to stop what they described as Israel’s “genocide” in Gaza, and disavowed violence against people.

All six suspects were acquitted of aggravated burglary by the jury after more than 36 hours of deliberation. The jury failed to reach verdicts on several other counts.

The announcement by the UK prosecutors followed widespread outrage about the verdict, which was decried by some as blatantly antisemitic. In an op-ed published in The Telegraph, a British daily, former Jewish Chronicle editor Stephen Pollard charged that the acquittals “are telling British Jews they have no future here,” and said the decision may be “the single most significant case in the history of Anglo-Jewry since 1945.”

CPS did not clarify which of the acquittals will be retried.

“Prosecutors are now considering the precise basis on which that retrial would proceed, including the form of the indictment, in accordance with CPS legal guidance,” a CPS spokesperson said.

A CPS spokesperson said: “Prosecutors are now considering the precise basis on which that retrial would proceed, including the form of the indictment, in accordance with CPS legal guidance." pic.twitter.com/oauNsFTMct

— Crown Prosecution Service (@CPSUK) February 7, 2026