The Trial of Majid Freeman, Verdict

The jury had not signed up for a fourth week, but here we were. In the trial of Majid Freeman, also known as Majid Novsarka, Judge Andrew Smith KC continued to remind the jurors that they were under no time pressure. But the impasse had now continued for days.

Judge refuses to alter his instructions

After the court clerk had been sworn in once more on Monday morning and the jury had left the room to continue their deliberations, the prosecution asked the judge if he would consider altering his instructions to the jury.

He asked the judge whether he’d allowing them to consider the lesser charge of “expressing support for a proscribed organisation (Hamas)”, rather than the more significant charge of “inviting support” that they had originally sought.

With considerable time and resource already expended by the Crown on the trial, there were signs of growing pressure to secure a conviction.

But the judge was unmoved. He was “distinctively uncomfortable” with the prospect of making such a change, he responded, having already given them detailed and precise guidance on the route to deciding on the charges before deliberations had commenced.

Reduced jury

Even with the provision of time, the jury was now reduced from its original 12 to 10.

One juror had been discharged during the trial for personal reasons, whilst a second left at the end of the agreed-upon three weeks. Now, a third juror informed the judge that he would have to leave by Wednesday.

With nine jurors stipulated as the minimum for a conviction, this would render a unanimous decision the only possible route to a verdict.

No conviction

By mid-morning, the jury returned. They had not managed to break the deadlock. They simply could not agree. Novsarka would be free to go, for now.

A hung jury was declared. The prosecution immediately sought a retrial, which the judge set for September 2027. The charges, and a maximum of fifteen years in prison, remain on the table. But Novsarka would be returning to his family.

On the steps outside Birmingham Crown Court, Novsarka addressed the crowd of supporters that had continued to show. He thanked:

every single person who stood with me, who came to court … who refused to let this case be ignored.

Freeman defiant

Novsarka portrayed the result in a positive light, pointing out that:

after almost a month, a jury of my peers could not agree that I am guilty of any crime.

He also struck a defiant tone at the prospect of returning to the stand in 16 months, saying that he would:

face [the] retrial with the same clarity, the same conscience, and the same conviction I have carried from the very beginning.

Hind Rajab’s name mentioned in court

It is possible that this trial marked the first time Hind Rajab’s name was uttered in a British courtroom.

Hind would have turned eight last week. Instead, she was brutally murdered as a five year-old girl, alongside six members of her family and two paramedics coming to her rescue, by the Israeli military in Gaza. The phone call between Hind and the Palestinian emergency services had been played in court:

I’m so scared, please come. Come take me. Please, will you come?

No trials for war criminals

At the end of April, the Metropolitan Police confirmed that they would not open an investigation into ten British nationals accused of crimes against humanity through their participation in the Gaza genocide.

It is inevitable that any new jury in the Majid Freeman case will have to relive the horrors of that genocide once more. The defendant said outside Birmingham Crown Court on Monday:

I welcome the opportunity of a retrial, because it means the evidence of what Israel has done to Gaza, the brutality, the systematic destruction of an entire people, will once again be placed before a jury of the British public. Let them see it again. Let the world be reminded again.

Featured image via 5 Pillars