Prosecutors: Palestine activists who damaged Trump Scottish golf course had ‘terrorism connection’

LONDON — Seven protesters accused of daubing pro-Palestinian graffiti on US President Donald Trump’s Turnberry golf resort in Scotland last year could face longer sentences if found guilty due to what prosecutors have described as a “terrorist connection.”

Activists from the now-banned group Palestine Action were charged last year with criminal damage for spray-painting walls at the course with the slogans “Free Gaza” and “Free Palestine” as well as insults against Trump.

“Gaza is not for sale” was painted on one of the greens, and holes on the course were dug up.

The indictment, provided by the Scottish courts’ service on Friday, stated that the seven accused “did maliciously dig up turf on the golf courses,” sprayed weedkiller on the fairways and greens, and painted “political and offensive slogans on the grass.”

It added that prosecutors would seek harsher sentences should they be found guilty because the alleged offenses were “aggravated by reason of having a terrorist connection.” The accused will make their first appearance in court on Monday.

Palestine Action was proscribed under terrorism laws in Britain in July 2025 after it began increasingly targeting Israel‑linked defense companies in the UK, especially Israel’s largest defense firm Elbit Systems. The ban was introduced shortly after a break-in at the Royal Air Force’s Brize Norton base in June 2025, in which activists damaged two military planes.

Membership in or support for the protest group is considered a criminal offense punishable by up to 14 years in prison in the UK under the Terrorism Act.

On Wednesday, the US also designated it a terrorist group, as part of a Trump administration crackdown on “far-left extremists.”

The campaign group Defend Our Juries said the seven accused of damage would, if found guilty, face far longer prison sentences should they be treated as terrorists even though they had not been charged with any terrorism offenses.

“It’s now all too clear why the White House has designated Palestine Action as a global terror organization, alongside al Qaeda,” a spokesperson for the group said. “It’s because members of Palestine Action upset the president in March 2025 by making a mess of his golf course.”

Set up in 2020, Palestine Action gained visibility for large protests and violent acts of vandalism after the October 7, 2023, Hamas-led attack on Israel sparked a two-year war in Gaza. The group’s stated goal on its website is to end “global participation in Israel’s genocidal and apartheid regime.”

The Supreme Court of the United Kingdom said last month that it would hear an appeal against a lower court ​ruling that the ban was lawful.

As of July 2026, roughly 3,000 people have been arrested for holding signs in support of Palestine Action.

In June, a judge jailed four activists for raiding an Elbit site near Bristol, in western England, in 2024 and causing over a million pounds in damage. One of them hit a police officer twice on the back with a sledgehammer, leaving her with a fractured spine.

Human rights groups and high-profile supporters have argued that the sentence was disproportionate.

Days later, Britain’s Court of Appeal upheld the government’s ban on Palestine Action, saying the group “overtly promoted unlawful violence amounting to terrorism.” Its co-founder Huda Ammori is now seeking to challenge the implementation of the ban in the UK Supreme Court.

“The news that the defendants could face terror sentencing — and that Trump is now following Britain’s lead by banning Palestine Action in the US — should be the final nail in the coffin of this ban, which has become one of the most extreme attacks on free speech and the right to protest in modern British history,” she said in a statement.

Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.