Kneecap member charged with terror offence

To Kneecap, the Irish republican band under fire over controversial concert footage – which appeared to show one of the band members calling for the deaths of MPs and yelling ‘up Hamas, up Hezbollah!’ Now one of the trio, 27-year-old Liam O’Hanna, has been charged with a terrorism offence for allegedly displaying a flag in support of Hezbollah at a gig in London, according to police. Dear oh dear…

The Belfast local, who performs under the stage name Mo Chara, was charged with displaying a flag in November last year at the O2 Forum in London in a way that, the Metropolitan Police said, aroused ‘reasonable suspicion that he is a supporter of a proscribed organisation’. The force started its probe this year after it was made aware of the event in April when a video from the gig emerged. 

It’s not the only brush with the law that Kneecap have faced recently. Counterterrorism police were also made aware of a video thought to be from November 2023 in which one of the trio appears to say: ‘The only good Tory is a dead Tory. Kill your local MP.’ In a political environment that has seen two UK politicians murdered within the last decade, the remarks are more than a little disturbing, to put it mildly. The footage sparked outrage across the political spectrum – with Sir Keir Starmer suggesting the band’s funding could be cut while Tory leader Kemi Badenoch called for the band to face prosecution. And even the SNP condemned the trio – with Scotland’s First Minister John Swinney calling for Kneecap to be removed from the line-up of Glasgow festival TRNSMT – after blasting them for having ‘crossed the line’. 

For their part, the Irish rap band have said they have never supported Hamas or Hezbollah and apologised last month to the families of murdered MPs. The musicians also claimed clips of the events had been taken out of context and were being ‘exploited and weaponised’. Well, now that’s for the justice system to decide…