A London judge on Friday dismissed a terrorism charge against a member of Kneecap, the popular Irish-language rap group, saying that prosecutors had not brought the charge “in the correct form” within the required timeline.
In May, British prosecutors charged the rapper, Liam Óg Ó hAnnaidh, who goes by the stage name Mo Chara, on an accusation of displaying a flag of Hezbollah, the Lebanon-based militant group that Britain considers a terrorist organization. Displaying the symbols of such groups is illegal in Britain.
Mr. Ó hAnnaidh, who was charged under the name Liam O’Hanna, has said in interviews that he picked up the flag at a concert last year without knowing what it was after an audience member threw it onstage.
On Friday, Paul Goldspring, the presiding judge, agreed with arguments made by Mr. Ó hAnnaidh’s legal team at previous hearings that prosecutors had taken action outside the statute of limitations.
Although Kneecap raps predominantly in Irish, the group’s popularity has soared among English-speakers over the past year, spurred by the release of a comedy movie telling the band’s origin story and by the rappers’ reputation for making pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel comments onstage.
The group has over 1.4 million monthly listeners on Spotify and last week played a sold-out 12,500-capacity show in London, during which it displayed the words “Free Palestine,” along with anti-Israel messages, on huge screens at the back of the stage.
The band’s vocal stance on the Middle East has gotten its members in hot water. In April, the band lost its U.S. visa sponsor after making anti-Israel comments onstage at the Coachella festival in California, and in August it canceled a planned U.S. tour including two sold-out shows at the Rooftop at Pier 17 in New York.
Kneecap is already barred from entering Hungary, and last week Canada’s government also denied entry to the group’s members, ending plans for a brief tour that was scheduled to start Oct. 14 in Toronto. Vince Gasparro, Canada’s parliamentary secretary for reducing crime, said in a video posted on X that Kneecap had “amplified political violence” and “publicly displayed support for terrorist organizations.”
In response, Kneecap said on Instagram that it would take legal action against Mr. Gasparro for his “wholly untrue and deeply malicious” comments. “We will be relentless in defending ourselves against baseless accusations to silence our opposition to genocide being committed in Israel,” the band’s statement added.
The London court ruling was the band’s second recent legal victory. In July, the police in southwestern England said they had ended an investigation over comments that band members made onstage at Glastonbury, Britain’s largest music festival. The police did not specify which comments had come under scrutiny, but the band said at the gig that “Israel are war criminals” and led a vast crowd in chants of “Free, free, Palestine.”
Alex Marshall is a Times reporter covering European culture. He is based in London.
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