Green Party member behind Zionism motion linked to jailed al-Qaeda supporter

Lubna Speitan, a British-Palestinian artist and Green Party member, authored a motion that would become one of the most divisive proposals in the party's recent history. Passed on Sunday, the motion defined Zionism as an ideology supporting an ethnonationalist Jewish state and called for a single democratic Palestinian state across all of historic Palestine—a formulation that would include the territory of modern-day Israel. The motion triggered swift and severe consequences: Israel's government banned Green Party leader Zack Polanski from entering the country, Jewish organizations condemned it as an attack on their community, and lawmakers from Labour and the Liberal Democrats filed complaints with Britain's equality watchdog.

What emerged in the days following the vote, however, was a connection that complicated the narrative considerably. Court documents from 2015 revealed that Speitan had offered to testify as a defence witness for Minh Quang Pham, a Vietnamese-born British national who had been arrested at Heathrow Airport in 2011 and later extradited to the United States. Pham was convicted and sentenced to 40 years in prison after admitting to three counts related to his support for al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, an offshoot of the broader al-Qaeda network. According to US prosecutors, Pham had been directed by al-Qaeda leader Anwar al-Awlaki to detonate explosives in Heathrow's arrivals area after receiving training during a seven-month stay in Yemen.

In the court filings, Speitan was identified as a close friend of Pham's who could provide testimony about his mental state—evidence that prosecutors said would be crucial to establishing a mental health defense. A medical condition prevented her from testifying in person, but she submitted a letter to the US District Judge in 2016. In that letter, she described Pham as one of the kindest, most honest, and most sincere people she had ever known. She wrote that if the judge truly understood the Pham that she and others had come to respect, they might have had the case dismissed entirely. She acknowledged he may have developed behavioral issues but maintained her characterization of his fundamental character.

The existence of the letter, first reported by the Jewish Chronicle, raised immediate questions about Speitan's judgment and associations at a moment when the Green Party was already fracturing over her Zionism motion. When asked by the Telegraph whether she remained in contact with Pham, Speitan reportedly confirmed that she did, adding that she believed he had been targeted by the system. The BBC sought comment from Speitan but received no response. The Green Party stated that she held no official positions within the organization and that the party takes allegations of this nature seriously, noting it has internal processes to investigate members whose expressed views conflict with party values.

The timing of these revelations deepened the crisis within the Greens. Party leader Polanski, who is Jewish, released a statement asserting that antisemitism and criticism of the Israeli state must remain completely distinct categories, and that he would not accept anyone being excluded from the party based on their religious or communal identity. Yet the motion itself had already prompted resignations. Phil Davies, the Green deputy leader in Wales, resigned from both his position and his party membership on Tuesday, calling the motion the final nail in the coffin of his commitment to the organization. Other Green councillors followed suit.

The documents containing Speitan's name made no suggestion that she had known of Pham's criminal activities during the time they were acquainted. The nature and duration of their friendship remained unclear from the publicly available record. What was clear was that her association with a man convicted in connection with an alleged plot against a major British airport, combined with her authorship of a motion that had triggered accusations of antisemitism and international diplomatic consequences, had created a perfect storm of controversy for a party already struggling with internal cohesion. The Green Party now faced not only the substantive debate over its Zionism motion but also questions about the judgment and associations of one of its members at a moment when such scrutiny felt particularly acute.