A prosecution under Jersey Terrorism Act affects us all

JVL Introduction

I was called to be a character witness at Natalie Strecker’s trial in Jersey in the first case brought under Jersey’s Terrorism Act. Natalie was charged with inviting support for a proscribed organisation under the Act and intending to invite support for such organisations under Article 13(1) of that Act. This case came to court following a complaint from a member of the public who remains unnamed.

This article provides some information about the case, about Natalie herself and, at the end, we publish her own powerful statement after her eventual acquittal.

We should all recognise how hard this past year has been for Natalie; there is a strong argument that the process itself is the punishment and leads to self-censorship. Natalie always says, it is the suffering of the Palestinians that we must put front and centre and Free, Free Palestine!

LL

Natalie Strecker was arrested following a dawn raid of her home in Jersey just over a year ago on 15th November 2024.  She was charged with supporting Hamas and Hezbollah with two tests: Inviting support for terrorism and secondly intending to invite support for terrorism. This was the first (and so far only) such case under the 2002 Terrorism Ac Act, which carries a potential sentence of 10 years in prison. She was not allowed a Jury Trial, her case being decided by two Jurats advised on the law by a Judge from the UK. Jersey Jurats are members of a panel of 12 lay people selected by an electoral college of elected politicians and lawyers who adjudicate the facts of a case

Since then she has been under great stress. Former British Ambassador Craig Murray attended much of the hearing and his blog The Terrifying Case of Natalie Strecker was written on the morning before the verdict was announced.

First a little background about Natalie, not least because the prosecution tried to demolish her character.  Natalie Strecker lives in Jersey and is a survivor of the care regime.  About ten years ago she was instrumental in getting a branch of Palestine Solidarity Campaign established on the island, which like the rest of the Channel Islands was occupied by the Nazis during much of World War Two.

She works mainly with young people and one of the four character witnesses was a former boss, who is not politically active but was stunned that Natalie was facing such charges as her experience of her was of someone who showed exceptional levels of kindness and concern, not least to her colleagues and the people with whom they worked.

Natalie did feel her character was on trial and the prosecution did try – unsuccessfully – to undermine the testimony from the four character witnesses. For example, I was the second character witness to be questioned and the prosecuting lawyer stated that I had been expelled from the Labour Party for antisemitism; I responded that was not the reason (see here and here for my responses to the Labour Party at the time). At one point he asked me what Natalie meant when she referred to October 7th as a “prison break” and I replied that I could not be expected to put words in her mouth – with which the Judge agreed.  Given there was some suggestion that she had been motivated by antisemitism my saying, as a Jewish woman, that I could not imagine anything less likely than Natalie being antisemitic was important.

The third character witness was a colleague from Jersey PSC. In his closing remarks, the Judge referred to the importance of the four character witnesses in highlighting Natalie as a person of exemplary character who was not only kind but also committed to non-violence and to justice for all.

Natalie spent 3 months in Hebron with the Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel – World Council of Churches. From my own experience with the same organisation, I can confirm that once the reality of occupation is witnessed it cannot be unseen.

While in Hebron she worked closely with Issa Amro who was the fourth and final character witness. In 2024 he won an award for his non violent stand (reported in The New York Times and in Arab News); in  2025, he was named as one of Time Magazine’s 100 “Most Influential Rising Stars”.  Time said:

“Thirty miles east of the Gaza Strip stands another cauldron: Hebron, the largest city in the West Bank, is inhabited by 200,000 Palestinians, 800 Jewish settlers, some 1,000 Israeli soldiers, and Issa Amro, who exists as a category of his own. A student of Mohandas Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr., Amro is far from the only Palestinian to embrace nonviolence. Polls show millions share his preference for a peaceful resolution to decades of conflict over Israel’s presence in the West Bank and Gaza. But few have had their conviction tested so sorely. As the founder of Youth Against Settlements, Amro spreads a gospel of resilience, passive resistance, and ­stubborn presence in one’s home. His philosophy stands in opposition to aggression from both settlers and soldiers, one of whom, right on camera, threw him to the ground and started kicking. Labeled a “provocateur” by the Israeli military, the activist has been honored by organizations from the European Union to the U.N. “See us as human beings,” Amro said, receiving the Right Livelihood Award in Berlin in June. “And see us as a nation.” “

Issa also appeared in Louis Theroux’s documentary “The Settlers” since when he has come under particular frequent attack. (See, for example, this Independent article: Palestinian in Louis Theroux documentary describes months of harassment by settlers and Israeli soldiers)

The prosecution alleged that Natalie was radicalised towards terrorism by her expeience and that when she said “solidarity with the resistance” she meant Hamas and Hezbollah. Her lawyers stressed that this was not the case and quoted many other posts where she mentioned Hamas, Hezbollah and/or resistance and that there were many more posts where she was critical of the proscribed organisations, clear that she did not support them and outlined again and again non violent forms of resistance and action such as boycotts, letter writing, vigils, etc. etc. Her lawyer also pointed out he times she had been critical of Hamas, her disapproval for targeting civilians and her compassion for the Israelis – and their families – who had been killed, injured or kidnapped as a result of that attack.

Her lawyer also argued that the prosecution had cherry-picked (see, eg BBC News) 8 posts from some 51,000 that Ms Strecker had made over recent years. This indicated a fishing expedition to produce some sort of evidence for a charge that had no evidential basis rather than a legitimate search for confirmatory evidence.

Her legal team also noted that she had cooperated with the police, handed over her electronic devices, given them the access codes and answered their questions.  Natalie did not give evidence in court herself but her answers to police questioning were frequently referred to.

The prosecution said that they knew Natalie was a person of good character and tried to argue that because Natalie was so respected that her “inviting support” for proscribed organisations” carried more weight.

The Judge (John Saunders) was fair and questioned both the Prosecution and Defence advocates as they made their closing statements. At one point in his summing up, the prosecuting lawyer stated that saying as an occupied people, resistance was allowed in international law up to and including armed resistance, could mean support for a proscribed organisation.

The Judge picked up on this and questioned whether, as someone who sometimes taught law students, he would be guilty of support for terrorism if, in a lecture, he told a law class that Palestinians have the right to armed resistance in international law.

As Craig Murray put it “After some kerfuffle when faced with such an awkward question, the prosecution replied that yes, it could be an offence to tell law students that.”  The Judge then said that we might pity the poor law lecturers.

Murray notes that earlier in the proceedings, “… the prosecution stated, … that “Resistance is synonymous with Hamas and Hezbollah” and that any support for, or justification of, Palestinian resistance is support for a proscribed organisation.

Thankfully, this interpretation of the Act was not accepted but the Judge did opine that international law was not relevant to the specifics of this case, which many of us found concerning.

In his closing remarks, the Judge emphasised that there was a case to answer, that the police interview had been exemplary and that Mrs Strecker had been treated with courtesy. He also said that we all need to be more careful about how we, who are passionate about the situation in the Middle East, word our opinions, especially on social media, as there was a risk of crossing the line into criminal behaviour.

In his statement, the Judge started by emphasising that Natalie was a person of “positive good character” with a history of helping young people.  The Judge noted that “her frustration with ongoing bloodshed had led to extreme language on social media” but stressed that she personally “abhors violence by Hamas and Hezbollah”.

To have been convicted, Natalie would have had to have been found guilty on both counts. On the first, “inviting support for organisations proscribed under the Act”, he did not say that her posts did – or that they did not – invite support but that “they could  be construed as inviting support”.  So they looked also at the second count “of intentionally inviting support for proscribed organisations” the Jurat’s assessment was clear.  She had showed her own criticism of the organisations and posted that she did not support them and the conclusion of the Court was that she would hardly be intending to invite support for an organisation that she did not support herself.

What will happen now?  There was a strong feeling that this case was being pushed by the UK government. The Judge came from the UK as did a government KC to advise and support the Prosecution lawyer, another was (unusually) there to support the Defence.  Those of us from the UK probably don’t realise how small Jersey is, with a population of only 103,267 there are fewer people than in half the average population of one London Borough and yet Jersey is an autonomous and self-governing British Crown Dependency. It is not a sovereign state but does have its own legal, fiscal and governmental systems.  Involvement of Judges and KCs from the UK is not unusual.  Might Jersey look to make prosecution easier by removing the need to prove “intent” bringing it into line with the UK where a person can be found someone guilty on the basis of “recklessness”.

Natalie had a great deal of support, for example, an Israeli friend travelled to Jersey at the weekend and several travelled from the UK even though they were not giving evidence. From Jersey, there was a solid group of local supporters present on each day of the trial, including her mother-in-law.

We were all delighted that the verdict was not guilty. This trial is a stark reminder  of the  continuing threats to freedom of speech and assembly being eagerly pursued by Starmer and Mahmood.

Statement from Natalie Strecker after the Not Guilty Verdict

I, Natalie Strecker, following one of the worst and most stressful years of my life, have finally been vindicated of the charges of inviting support for a proscribed organisation. I am grateful to the court and the jurats, for their deliberations and correctly concluding that, despite maybe clumsy wording on occasion, I never intended to invite support for any of the groups cited. I also thank them for the respect and fellow feeling they demonstrated to me throughout the proceedings.

I would like to take the opportunity to thank my incredible legal team, Mark and Tim for their assistance during this difficult time, I could not have asked for better representation.  I also thank all of my friends, who have faithfully supported me during these difficult days, I love you all. I thank, too, all those in our community who have offered support and words of encouragement throughout this journey, it has meant everything. To my much loved husband, my mother-in-law, and family, I am so very sorry that you had to be put through this, and I am eternally grateful for your love and support.

This has personally been an incredibly traumatic and dehumanising time, compounded by old wounds triggered by the manner in which I was arrested. I am a care survivor, a survivor of abuse, because of the failings of our government and institutions as a child.

I walk out of court today with my head held high and in the knowledge that it was my character that was put on trial, and I won.

However, the Palestinian people, the most dehumanised community on our planet, continue to be subjected to genocide, apartheid and the most brutal ethnic cleansing. It is a stain on our collective conscience, and I implore islanders to keep doing all they can to bring it to an end, alongside working to end all the other genocides taking place, such as those in Sudan and the Congo.

As for myself, I remain committed to the struggle for a kinder, fairer world, in which the right to freedom, justice, equality and a life of dignity are guaranteed for all in our human family.

Thank you and free Palestine.

(Photo Natalie’s own)

(Photo Natlie’s own)