Prosecutors said they would pursue longer sentences against seven defendants accused of defacing U.S. President Donald Trump’s Turnberry golf resort in Scotland last year if found guilty as their alleged offenses have “a terrorist connection,” Reuters reported on Friday.
In March 2025, officers found red spray paint daubed on the 800-acre resort’s clubhouse in South Ayrshire, including damage inflicted on the golf course.
“Gaza is not for sale” was painted on one of the greens and slogans such as “Free Gaza,” as well as anti-Trump slurs, were spray-painted on the walls.
The intruders, members of the now-banned Palestine Action group, were charged last year.
They accused “maliciously [dug] up turf on the golf courses,” sprayed herbicides on the fairways and greens, and painted “political and offensive slogans on the grass,” Reuters cited the indictment as saying.
A hearing for the seven defendants has been postponed to October, the report cited the Scottish courts’ service as saying on Friday.
On Wednesday, Israel’s Foreign Ministry welcomed U.S. Treasury sanctions designating Palestine Action, Masar Badil and other terrorism-affiliated groups.
The ministry accused terrorist organizations of exploiting Western civil society to conceal violent activity, radicalize young people and channel illicit funding, and praised U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and the Trump administration for the move.
“The international community must maintain zero tolerance for terrorism and its infrastructure,” the ministry said. “Exposing front organizations and severing their financial and operational lifelines is essential to safeguarding global security.”
The Trump administration sanctioned on Wednesday three entities it says are “violent far-left terrorist groups,” with all connected to anti-Israel activity.
The U.K.-based organization Palestine Action was proscribed as a terrorist group by Britain in July 2025. The group has targeted defense companies and other businesses it associates with Israel, carrying out attacks that have caused millions of dollars in damage, according to the U.S. and British governments.
The British government has said Palestine Action’s attacks, including at defense companies Thales, Instro Precision and Elbit Systems UK, crossed the threshold into terrorism because they involved serious property damage intended to advance the group’s political cause and influence the government.
In Britain, legal challenges over Palestine Action’s status remain ongoing. In June, a British judge sentenced four activists to prison terms exceeding 20 years for a 2024 raid on an Elbit Systems UK factory that caused roughly £1 million ($1.3 million) in damage and left a police officer with a fractured spine. On June 15, London’s Court of Appeal overturned an earlier High Court ruling that had deemed the government’s ban unlawful, and Britain’s Supreme Court is scheduled to hear an appeal regarding the proscription.
