There was a hint of irony when the hearing for Kneecap rapper Liam Óg Ó hAnnaidh’s case for allegedly showing support for a terror group was moved to a different court in London on Friday due to flooding.
Yet it was the prosecution’s case against the Belfast musician that was fatally holed below the waterline, as the judge dismissed the case against him due to a delay in issuing the paperwork and told him: “You’re free to go.”
Mr Ó hAnnaidh’s immediate reaction from the dock was one of outward restraint, a feigned sense of rockstar ennui. Yet although he seemed to try to hide it, a flash of raw emotion was clearly evident on the 27 year-old’s face as he adjusted the Palestinian keffiyeh around his neck and thanked his Irish translator, before strolling away.
“I think she’s God,” he would later say of the woman whom he named as Susan, and whom the court had hired to sit next to him and whisper the proceedings into his ear as Gaeilge – the rap trio Kneecap performs in their native Irish tongue as well as English.
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Mr Ó hAnnaidh’s stage name is Mo Chara – My Friend. He had friends and supporters in the public gallery of courtroom number one of Woolwich Crown Court for Friday’s hearing.
As Judge Paul Goldspring’s decision was announced, they stamped their feet and cheered like the rapper had just scored a hat-trick against the Auld Enemy. And, in a way, he had.
This was the Irishman’s third appearance in the English courts since August to face an allegation of showing public support for a proscribed organisation – the Lebanese armed group Hizbullah – at a London gig last November. It was alleged Mr Ó hAnnaidh draped himself in a Hizbullah flag and shouted “up Hamas, up Hizbullah”, referring to the Palestinian and Lebanese militant groups respectively.
[ Case against Kneecap’s Liam Óg Ó hAnnaidh thrown out in London court ]
Three times the authorities took Mr Ó hAnnaidh to court on a charge – one to which the prosecution believed there to be no plausible defence. Three times Mr Ó hAnnaidh had walked out the door. After Friday he would not be coming back.
“Please take your celebrations outside,” the judge politely asked the jubilant Kneecap supporters in the public gallery.
Below them in the well of the court, Mr Ó hAnnaidh’s family, management and legal team, including barristers Jude Bunting KC and Blinne Ní Ghrálaigh KC and Belfast solicitor Darragh Mackin, hugged and smiled.
Ms Ní Ghrálaigh was on crutches, yet she looked ready to dance a jig.
The rapper won his case because the charge against him had been filed a day too late – the paperwork was supposed to have been drafted within six months of the alleged offence.
Judge Goldspring was clear the case against Mr Ó hAnnaidh was “unlawful” and “null” due to the faulty paperwork. He awarded the defence its costs.
The case had been moved from the flood-affected Westminster Magistrates’ Court in plush west London to the somewhat earthier environs of Woolwich Crown Court, 21km away on the fringes of east London. The court is next to top-security Belmarsh Prison, where Irish republicans were held in the past.
The venue change helped to shrink the crowd of Kneecap supporters gathered outside, compared to earlier hearings.
But there was still perhaps a few hundred gathered on a grass bank outside the court complex an hour in advance of the hearing, which was scheduled for 10am.
They stood on a grassy bank that a handwritten sign proclaimed as “Cnoc Kneecap Hill” and they waved Irish Tricolours and flags of the state of Palestine – as of last week newly recognised by the UK.
As The Irish Times arrived, a band of musicians played Dirty Old Town to the jaunty crowd. Security was tight. Vanloads of London’s Metropolitan Police oversaw proceedings outside, but there was no trouble. There was already a carnival atmosphere before the case was thrown out; it was a festival of celebration afterwards.
Mr Ó hAnnaidh’s wasn’t the only terror-related case on Friday morning before Judge Goldspring, the chief magistrate of Westminster who was only sitting at Woolwich because of the flooding at his usual workplace.
At 10am, Judge Goldspring first presided over a brief hearing about Hashem Abedi, who is serving at least 55 years for the suicide bomb attack carried out by his brother at an Ariane Grande pop concert in Manchester in 2017.
Abedi is now accused of the attempted murder of three prison officers this year at Frankland Prison in Co Durham. He appeared by video-link from Belmarsh Prison, where five officers in riot masks and protective body armour stood over him for the preliminary hearing.
A Kneecap supporter would later tell to The Irish Times about what they saw as the incongruity of a Belfast rapper being brought before court on a terror charge for allegedly being draped in a Hizbullah flag at a gig and how he had appeared in the same court session as Abedi, a man whose explosives had murdered 22 people.
“Liam should never have been here,” the supporter said.
After the Abedi case, the judge read his legally dense ruling on Mr Ó hAnnaidh’s application to have his case thrown out. Long before he finished, it had become clear to some people in the court which way it was going to go.
Knowing smiles were exchanged among some Kneecap supporters. JJ Ó Dochartaigh, the Kneecap member better known as the usually balaclava-toting DJ Provaí, winked down at reporters from the gallery.
The case was dismissed, Mr Ó hAnnaidh had won. As Kneecap supporters milled in the corridors, a clearly overcome Billy Ó hAnnaidh, the rapper’s father, said he had not understood a word of what was going on until the very final moment when the judge told his son he was free to go. How did he feel now?
“I’m emotional, just so emotional,” he told The Irish Times. Pádraig Ó Tiarnaigh, of the Irish language campaign group An Dream Dearg, said the result was “brilliant, fantastic” and was “an cinneadh ceart gan amhnas”, meaning the right decision without doubt.
Mr Ó hAnnaidh and his supporters emerged from the court to be greeted as heroes by the crowd outside. A band of musicians played Go On Home British Soldiers, as bemused police officers watched on.
Mr Ó hAnnaidh and his team gave impassioned speeches criticising the British authorities for taking the case and the media for how it had been reported, before saying its dismissal was a victory not just for them but for Palestine.
After the speeches ended the crowd dispersed, with many descending on a passing 472 bus on its way back to Woolwich – the poor driver looked shell-shocked at the crowd trying to board.
Mr Ó hAnnaidh left in a silver van, a free man.
