Palestine Action vandals risk jail defying subpoenas as DOJ seeks overseas comrade

Leftists convicted in a 2023 vandalism attack said Thursday they will return to jail rather than testify in a federal grand jury investigation in New Hampshire.Bridget Shergalis and Sophie Ross, of the activist movement Palestine Action, spoke out about the subpoenas they received on Oct. 16, which were leaked to the leftist publication The Grayzone. The two women’s anti-Israel network is increasingly under fire this year after the Trump administration sanctioned Palestine Action as a global terrorist group and requested extradition for one of their allies, James “Fergie” Chambers, from a Spanish jail.“In the past, grand jury resisters have been imprisoned by the courts in order to coerce them into testifying,” Shergalis and Ross said. “But the two of us once spent a year under the yoke of an invasive criminal investigation which threatened us with 37 years in prison. We did not cooperate under those conditions, and we see no benefit whatsoever to doing so now.” “We consider the possibility of imprisonment to be a very cheap price to pay for the defense of our movement, which is one small part of the global resistance against United States imperialism,” they added.Shergalis and Ross were sentenced in New Hampshire court to 60 days in jail in 2024 over a violent “direct action” targeting Israeli defense company Elbit Systems in November 2023. Their federal subpoenas did not specify details of the new case, but news broke earlier this year that the Department of Justice wants Spain to turn over Chambers on terrorism, money laundering, and riot charges stemming from a sealed indictment.The charges against Chambers relate to his alleged involvement in the same Elbit Systems incident involving Ross, Shergalis, and two other Palestine Action radicals, multiple outlets reported. The four local defendants were convicted of misdemeanors for damaging a skylight, ventilation system, windows, and roof at the Israeli defense company’s office while also smearing it with paint. Chambers, who spends his wealthy family’s inheritance on political causes, co-founded Palestine Action’s American branch and publicly admitted to funding its legal defense in 2023.Chambers is also reportedly accused of working to finance Hamas in direct concert with Iran.The DOJ did not respond to the Washington Examiner’s request for comment about Chambers’s charges. His legal team calls the case politically biased and is asking Spain to refuse extradition.TRUMP ADMINISTRATION ‘MONITORING’ LEFTIST ORGANIZERS IGNORING NEW TERRORISM SANCTIONS: STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIALShergalis and Ross say they are committed to protecting their comrades from legal consequences, regardless of what the grand jury ultimately focuses on. They also condemned the Treasury Department’s “Transnational Terrorist Group” sanctions against Palestine Action from August, a crackdown that has not stopped the violent movement from continuing.“Terrorism designations exist to isolate political actors from international support networks, and to delegitimize the tactics they use,” the two women said. “This is the ultimate hypocrisy, when the United States has done nothing but bring down slaughter and mass destruction onto Palestine, Lebanon, Iran, and the rest of the Third World. We stand by our past tactics, and in unconditional solidarity with whoever is being targeted by this grand jury, as well as with every other person currently undergoing similar investigations by the United States.”