Mayo-born barrister leads defence in Kneecap UK terror case

A top barrister from Mayo will be representing a member of Belfast rap group Kneecap as he heads to London to appear before the courts in a high-profile terrorism case.

Member of the Irish rap trio Liam Óg Ó hAnnaidh, better known under his stage alias Mo Chara, will be in Westminster Magistrates’ Court on Wednesday, June 18, following being charged under the UK’s Terrorism Act.

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The charges come in the wake of footage resurfacing of Mr Ó hAnnaidh being alleged to have described the frontman raising a flag of Hezbollah during one of their concerts in 2019.

The footage resurfaced in the wake of the group’s appearance at Coachella, where the group spoke on the current actions of Israel in the Israel-Palestine conflict.

During the concert, the live-stream of the performance showed a projection stating that Israel is "being enabled by the US government who arm and fund Israel despite their war crimes."

The band’s legal team includes Blinne Ní Ghrálaigh, who hails from Glencalry in North Mayo.

Mayo descendant Ms Ní Ghrálaigh is someone who has been involved in a myriad of high-profile cases throughout her esteemed legal career.

Only last year, the esteemed lawyer was part of the legal team representing South Africa, as they accused Israel of committing genocide. In the monumental trial at The Hague, she stated that “the international community continues to fail the Palestinian people, despite the overt dehumanising genocidal rhetoric by Israeli governmental and military officials matched by the Israeli army’s actions on the ground, despite the horror of the genocide against the Palestinian people being livestreamed from Gaza to our mobile phones, computers and television screens.”

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She was also involved in another high-profile case back in 2015 regarding the Croatia-Serbia genocide case in the ICC.

Mo Chara has enrolled a high-profile legal team to join them in the courts to defend themselves in a case labelled by the group in a statement as ‘political policing’ and ‘a carnival of distraction’.