Kneecap‘s Mo Chara is set to return to court on terror charges tomorrow (Friday September 26), with the band’s supporters accusing the UK government of hypocrisy and trying to silent dissent from those who support Palestinians. See footage from their last appearance above, and the lowdown on what’s happened so far below.
The Belfast rap trio will be appearing at Westminster Magistrates Court for a third time, where they have once again invited fans and supporters to gather outside – telling followers that “the witch-hunt continues”.
The trial is levelled against band member Mo Chara – real name Liam Óg Ó hAnnaidh, 27 – who found himself charged over an alleged incident where he reportedly displayed a Hezbollah flag during a Kneecap show last November and shouted “up Hamas, up Hezbollah”. Both are listed as proscribed terrorist organisations by the UK Government.
The band responded to the news by posting a graphic, reading: “18 Months Of Genocide Footage Not Under Investigation By UK Counter-Terror Police”. The graphic was then captioned with the words: “Some facts”. They later denied the offence and vowed to “vehemently defend ourselves”.
“This is political policing,” they wrote. “This is a carnival of distraction. We are not the story. Genocide is”. Mo Chara maintains that he didn’t know what the flag was when he picked it up and the comments were a joke in character.
Kneecap have consistently denied supporting either Hamas or Hezbollah, and said that they do not incite or condone violence. They have also argued that the footage at the UK shows had been taken out of context, and described the legal action as a “carnival of distraction”.
Mo Chara’s first appearance back in June saw a huge crowd – including support Paul Weller – gather outside as Og O hAnnaidh attended court to simply confirm his name, date of birth and Belfast address. He was released on unconditional bail until his next hearing on August 20. This was to allow time for legal arguments regarding the timeframe in which charges were issued, an Irish interpreter is to be sourced for the next hearing.
At one point during the hearing, Goldspring claimed that the court had been unable to hire an Irish translator, offering “if anyone knows of one…” At that point, it is reported the gallery burst into laughter and pointed to DJ Próvai who himself used to be an Irish teacher in real life, and acted as a translator when Chara found himself in trouble with the law in the band’s 2024 BAFTA-winning self-titled film starring Michael Fassbender.
In the run-up to the charges, the band’s profile was rapidly on the rise when they courted more international controversy and headlines following their Coachella 2025 appearance in April. This saw them amplify their long-held pro-Palestine messaging by displaying the words “Fuck Israel” on the screens, while telling the US crowd that “Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinian people… it is being enabled by the US government who arm and fund Israel despite their war crimes” .
Speaking outside the court at the first appearance, a Kneecap spokesperson spoke of the hundreds of concerts the band had played “without a single complaint”.
“Around the world, Kneecap are hailed as heroes,” he continued, before hitting out at the British courts for a “rushed prosecution following their Coachella performance, where Kneecap did not shy away from speaking their truth to power.”
He went on: “The reality is that Kneecap will stand up against political oppression, to defend their rights and the rights of artists and people all around the world. It is not new for Irish people to be prosecuted under special powers for terrorism acts.”
Being greeted once again by chants of “free Mo Chara” while supporters watched guest speakers and performances of Irish folk songs and protest anthems, the band returned to Westminster Magistrates Court on Wednesday August 20 – but the case was again adjourned while the court considered whether the case had been brought within the statutory six-month limit.
Judgment has been reserved, with the next hearing set to be held on Friday September 26 at 10am. There, Judge Paul Goldspring will give his decision on whether he has jurisdiction to hear the case, after he said he was “conscious and anxious” that a “speedy resolution” will be wanted.
Mo Chara’s lawyers are seeking to throw out the case, arguing that the terror charge against him was brought outside the time limit. They claim that it was brought a day after the six-month limit for such charges. However, prosecutors say the charge was brought exactly within the time limit.
Defence counsel Brenda Campbell KC told the court that the Attorney General had not given permission for the case to be brought against Mo Chara when police informed him he was to face a terror charge on May 21. However, prosecutor Michael Bisgrove said permission was not required until the defendant’s first court appearance.
Thanking fans and supporters outside the court, Mo Chara said: “We know that the story is more than just about me, it’s more than Kneecap, this is a story about Palestine and us a distraction from the real story. We know unfortunately, this story will end up in the media today while Israel commits genocide at the same time.
“So everybody: continue to speak about Palestine. Free Palestine. Tiocfaidh ár lá [our day will come].”
Bandmate Moglai Bap agreed, telling the crowd: “Keep talking about Palestine. Keep calling it a genocide. That’s the real story and this is just another distraction.”
Speaking from a stage erected outside the court, a number of guest speakers defended Kneecap while accusing the UK government and legal system of hypocrisy.
“Today, I have come to talk to you about my friend from Ireland who has defended Palestine – another place that has suffered from hundreds of years of British occupation,” said UK rapper and songwriter Jelani Blackman. “In 2025, there’s a young Irish man on trial for speaking out against English injustice, and a Black man from Africa and the Caribbean speaking out to defend him.”
He continued: “We all know the reality. This was never about the charge. It’s about what Kneecap stand for. I’ve known them for a while now, and not once was any of their political views considered criminal. They were allowed to speak, until they spoke in America and the hammer came down.
“It was terrifying to see, for such a complete net to fall over them, for the witch hunt to be so absolute. It put into perspective for even the most sceptical people that the media and government is broken. The code of silence that has been used to muzzle so, so many people over the years has become a wide-reaching web and it’s hard not to feel trapped. All we have are our stories.”
Human rights barrister Franck Magennis pointed to the UK’s proscription of Palestine Action and banning them as a terrorist group as an “astonishing mistake”, to highlight what he saw as double standards.
“The British state has no business lecturing anyone about violence, they have no business lecturing anyone about racism, they have no business lecturing anyone about how to resist colonialism, they are one of the most violently racist colonial empires in human history,” Magennis argued. “They should sit down and shut up.”
Dr Omar Abdel-Mannan, a Paediatric Neurologist from Healthworkers 4 Palestine who has called for a boycott of Israeli businesses, said that “whether in the killing fields of Rafah or in the halls of Westminster, when the powerful speak the truth, they always come after those who dare to speak it. That is exactly what is happening to Mo Chara and Kneecap”.
“Putting Mo Chara in a courtroom is not about justice,” he continued. “It is about fear, it is about intimidation. It is about shutting us up and good luck to them, because they know music is dangerous, music carries truth faster than any government press release, songs carry memory, anger and defiance, songs fuel liberation movements. That’s why they want Mo Chara in a prison cell. To send a message: step out of line and we’ll come for you next.”
He added: “As health workers, we know what happens when the truth is silenced. When whistleblowers are gagged, patients die. When journalists are targeted, war crimes multiply. When artists are censored, injustice festers in the dark. Truth is like medicine, it only works when it reaches the people who need it. That’s why this case matters to all of us, not just to fans of Kneecap, not just to the people of Ireland, but everyone who believes the state must never own our voices.”
Shezana Hafiz of advocacy group CAGE International meanwhile, argued that the attention needed to shift from Kneecap back to the UK government for what she called “complicity as a business model” in supplying arms to Israel.
“Let’s be absolutely clear: we are not the ones on trial here, we stand here as the accusers in the court of history, in the conscience of humanity,” argued Hafiz. “You, the arms dealers, the compliant politicians, the judges, you will stand as the accused. You can drag us through your courts, you can try us under your terror laws, but with every arrest you confess your fear. With every charge, you indict your own corrupt system. We see Palestine as the horizon of liberation itself; the standard by which you are found guilty.
“To the British state, to the shameful British state: history will not record you as the guardians of order, history will record you as accomplices to genocide. And it will record the ones who stood, who spoke, as the witnesses for the prosecution. So I say, from the streets of London to the skies over Gaza, we stand in solidarity with the resistance. Free Mo Chara, free Palestine.”
Kneecap have defended their “satirical” live sets, arguing: “It’s not our job to tell people what’s a joke and what’s not.” Kneecap subsequently claimed that the government and their critics “want to make us seem small”. They’ve also denied accusations of anti-Semitism and inciting violence, claiming that “those attacking us want to silence criticism of a mass slaughter”.
This summer saw Love Music Hate Racism share a statement saying that the charity “stands with Kneecap”, while the band’s collaborator Toddla T spoke out against a secret letter from the “musical elite” – that was reportedly written to try and have the group kicked off the Glastonbury 2025 bill. Reports that Dua Lipa sacked her agent for his part in this letter turned out to be untrue in that he wasn’t working for the singer at the time, while Lipa did stand by her support of Palestine.
The band went on to play the West Holts stage at Glastonbury, where they led chants of “fuck Keir Starmer” after he argued that it wasn’t “appropriate” for the band to perform at the festival.
Kneecap responded to the Prime Minister’s initial call for them to be axed from Glasto writing: “You know what’s ‘not appropriate’ Keir?! Arming a fucking genocide.”
Later speaking to NME about his comments, Starmer doubled-down: “Kneecap shouldn’t be performing at Glastonbury, and I don’t support inciting violence as free speech. I think it’s important that we distinguish the issues we all care about and should be spoken about freely on the one hand, and then the incitement to violence on the other. They’re two different things.”
“There’s a huge difference between speaking out about what’s happening in parts of the world,” he told NME. “All of us are concerned by what we’re seeing in Gaza – whether that’s the continued detention of hostages or the intolerable lack of aid that we’re seeing, starvation… everybody should be able to speak out about that.”
Starmer recently led the UK government in recognising Palestine as a state to “keep alive” the possibility of peace, while also rejecting that Israel was committing genocide. However, a UN Human Rights Council report recently concluded that there was “reasonable grounds that the Israeli authorities and Israeli security forces have committed and are continuing to commit… genocide against the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip”. Israel continue to deny war crimes and accusations of genocide.
Last month The British Red Cross reported that the death toll was over 61,000, including over 17,000 children with at least 150,000 people have been injured. The charity also stated that 1,200 people were killed in the Hamas attack on October 7 2023, with more than 5,400 injured and over 200 hostages taken.
Kneecap spoke out against the Prime Minister and the terror charges again at their massive London gig last week, with Moglai Bap telling the crowd: “Fuck me, Kneecap at Wembley Arena? Keir Starmer must be fucking raging.”
Mo Chara said that he “wasn’t the first and I won’t be the last Irishman in court in London on trumped up terrorism charges,” arguing that “all we’re doing is filling a void that the politicians aren’t filling,” before Moglai Bap concluded that “Music is all about people, and people is all about politics”.
In a five-star review of their Wembley Arena show, NME concluded: “You don’t pull off a gig like that on controversy alone. You need bangers and you need a culture to fill this room. Kneecap have all that, and they’re a fucking good laugh. There’s no call for violence, there’s nothing that should land someone in front of a judge, just solidarity and a rave against the dying of the light.
“The state may try to crush them, but Kneecap have a power of their own. As they spit on ‘It’s Been Ages’: “Controversy won’t phase us, we hold all the cards and they’re aces, try to protect your kids but they’ll hear us”.”
Earlier this summer, Kneecap expressed their confidence in winning this legal battle against the UK government by listing their legal team.
“The British establishment is conducting a campaign of against Kneecap which is to be fought at Westminster Magistrate’s Court,” they wrote. “We are ready for this fight. We are proud to have such a strong legal team with us. We are on the right side of history, you are not. We will fight you in court. We will win.”
Their team included Gareth Peirce, solicitor for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange during his fight against US extradition, and Rosalind Comyn, who has represented Extinction Rebellion protesters in court.
Alongside them were Darragh Mackin from Phoenix Law (solicitor for Sarah Ewart, whose successful legal challenge helped to usher in the decriminalisation of abortion in Northern Ireland), Brenda Campbell KC (defence barrister in the collapsed case against Seamus Daly, who was accused of murdering people in the IRA bomb attack of 1998 in Omagh), and Jude Bunting KC and Blinne Ni Ghralaigh KC (who both acted in the non-profit company Liberty in the Stansted 15’s successful conviction appeal after they broke into Stansted Airport to stop a plane deporting people to Africa).
Last year saw Kneecap release their critically-acclaimed debut album ‘Fine Art’ as well as their BAFTA-winning self-titled biopic film.
A video from a show in November 2023 that allegedly showed the band telling the crowd that “the only good Tory is a dead Tory, kill your local MP” was also investigated by counter-terrorism police, before it was confirmed that the band would not be prosecuted.
This month also saw Kneecap banned from entering Canada, with officials claiming they had “made statements that are contrary to Canadian values” that “have caused deep alarm”. Parliamentary Secretary for Combating Crime Vince Gasparro said that the group had “amplified political violence and publicly displayed support for terrorist organisations such as Hezbollah and Hamas”. Kneecap responded by promising legal action against Gasparro, saying that his statements were “wholly untrue and deeply malicious”.
“We have today instructed our lawyers to initiate legal action against you,” the group said. “We will be relentless in defending ourselves against baseless accusations to silence our opposition to a genocide being committed by Israel. When we beat you in court, which we will, we will donate every cent to assist some of the thousands of child amputees in Gaza,” they added. “We have played in Canada many times with zero issues and a message of solidarity and love.”
The band are among the 400+ artists including Fontaines D.C. and Massive Attack taking part in the No Music For Genocide campaign, and vowing to prevent their music from being streamed in Israel.
Kneecap continue to tour the UK and Europe throughout autumn and winter 2025. Visit here for tickets and more information.
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