Kneecap rapper scores victory in Hezbollah flag case as UK prosecutors lose appeal over timing

By AFP and ToI Staff 11 March 2026, 5:23 pm

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Kneecap band member Liam O'Hanna, who performs under the stage name Mo Chara, leaves Woolwich Crown Court in southeast London on September 26, 2025. (CARLOS JASSO / AFP)

An Irish-language singer from punk-rap group Kneecap will not face a terrorism charge after UK prosecutors lose a High Court challenge against a judge’s decision to dismiss the case.

Liam O’Hanna was charged in May last year with displaying a flag of the proscribed Iran-backed terror group Hezbollah at a November 2024 concert in London, under the UK’s 2000 Terrorism Act.

But he walked free from a London court in September after a chief magistrate, Paul Goldspring, found there had been a technical error around the timings in bringing the case against him. The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), which operates in England and Wales, appealed the decision in January, arguing Goldspring had erred in ruling that the written charge had been filed too late.

But in its decision today, a two-judge panel at the High Court dismisses the appeal, siding with the chief magistrate.

“The judge was right to hold that he had no jurisdiction,” the pair states in a 13-page ruling, concluding “no written charge was issued within six months” of the alleged offense.

O’Hanna was charged on May 21 — six months to the day after the concert when he allegedly displayed the flag.

But the attorney general did not approve the charge until the following day, which O’Hanna’s legal team has consistently argued meant it fell outside a six-month time limit.