The Trial of Majid Freeman, Day 2

When the judge entered the chamber at Birmingham Crown Court for day two of Majid Freeman’s trial, DC Sean Lambert was already waiting in the witness box.

Perhaps one of the most significant points of the day came in the afternoon, mentioned only as a passing thought.

Cellebrite

The prosecution’s lead counsel, Tom Williams, had handed over to his colleague Laura Jeffrey for a review of the “agreed-upon facts” of the trial. DC Lambert was being asked to confirm the details of a mobile phone that had been seized from Freeman’s room shortly after his arrest in July 2024.

Jeffrey asks:

It says ‘Cellebrite’ on the side [of this screenshot], but that’s just a reference to the software used to conduct the forensic examination [of the phone]. Is that correct?

“Yes”, Lambert replied.

What was not mentioned in the court room is that Cellebrite was founded by ex-IDF operative Yossi Carmil and is staffed by dozens of former Unit 8200 Israeli intelligence personnel.

This is something you’d think might be relevant in the case of a man facing up to ten years in a British jail, almost exclusively for social media posts related to the Gaza genocide.

The Universal Forensic Extraction Device, which extracts data including contacts, locations, deleted messages, and calls from smartphones and other devices, is Cellebrite’s “flagship tool”. Freedom of Information requests have previously revealed twenty-six of the UK’s forty-seven police forces admitting to using the technology, with others planning trials.

Cellebrite have not shied away from their own involvement in military operations in Gaza, either. The company has claimed that they have been “instrumental” in assisting Israeli intelligence with phone-hacking services.

Freeman’s online activity

On day two, the prosecution resumed on page 49 of the black evidence bundle – a so-called “timeline” of Freeman’s online activity.

At the beginning of day one, the jury were told that some messages presented to them would be taken from private message exchanges found on Freeman’s phone, rather than public posts. Some would pre-date the UK’s proscription of Hamas – a decision taken by then Home Secretary Priti Patel in November 2021.

In 2017, Patel had been forced to resign as international development secretary after conducting secret, unauthorised meetings with Israeli government officials including the now wanted fugitive Benjamin Netanyahu.

As reams of material were skimmed through, it became increasingly difficult to discern between the various categories the material was organized into. Whether this is deliberate is a matter of speculation, but many were simply reposts of major media organisations, including Al Jazeera and Middle East Eye.

Others seemed totally irrelevant to any accusations of illegality. Freeman posts a story about the ‘Fajr campaign’, where young people from across Palestine would take buses to al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem for early morning prayers. The campaign was a way of staking their continued claim to the sacred site.

In another public post, Freeman shares screenshots of a conversation with a friend in Gaza, wishing him an Eid Mubarak. He asks:

Are things still difficult there, or getting back to normal?

His friend replies:

It is air, land, and sea. 14 were killed today.

The brutal context

It was impossible to disconnect the social media timeline from the sheer brutality of the crimes Freeman was responding to. Strangely, this seemed to be the prosecution’s intention.

Other posts are certainly more impassioned in tone. One expressed hope that the Israeli war criminal Benjamin Netanyahu suffers “a slow, painful death.” Arguably, a view shared by many.

I wondered: is it illegal to express such an opinion? If not, why was it included in the evidence bundle?

Again, the prosecution were “building a narrative”. The defendant is not an ordinary person traumatised by a constant stream of the most brutal acts known to humanity, but a violent and radical “jihadi”.

Shared Twitter posts

A huge number of the posts are not Freeman’s own words, but shares of others’ content. This begs the question: does sharing a post equal endorsement and/or responsibility?

One Twitter post read:

The IOF have released documentation of some of the resistance fighters killed by an aircraft in Khan Yunis. May Allah accept their shahada [testimony of faith] and give them victory over the occupiers.

Another screenshot said:

If they claim to support Palestine but don’t support armed resistance then they are not our true friends. They want Palestinians to suffer in silence.

The post does not mention Hamas. So, is support for any armed resistance to military occupation now proscribed in Britain?

On my taxi journey home, I gave my driver a brief overview of Freeman’s case. He said:

But I support the Palestinians’ right to resist. I support anyone’s right to resist tyranny.

“Just don’t write that online”, I replied.

Featured image via CAGE International

By The Canary

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