A man accused of defacing a statue of Sir Winston Churchill with graffiti branding the former Prime Minister a “Zionist war criminal” said he was “doing a protest” when challenged, a court has heard.
Prosecutors say Dutch national Olax Outis, who is also known as Caspar San Giorgi, climbed onto the monument in Parliament Square wearing a red boiler suit emblazoned with the words “I support Palestine Action”.
He is accused of causing more than £7,000 of damage by using red spray paint to cover the statue with phrases including “Stop the Genocide” and “Free Palestine”.
San Giorgi, 39, denies criminal damage over the incident on February 27.
Opening the case to jurors on Wednesday, prosecutor Peter Ratliff said the area, opposite the Houses of Parliament in Westminster, is of “significant historic and symbolic importance”.
He told Southwark Crown Court that San Giorgi went to Parliament Square just before 4am armed with cans of spray paint and used a ladder to climb the plinth.
Jurors heard he was wearing a long black coat, which he removed, revealing the words “I support Palestine Action” on the back of his boiler suit.
Ratliff said San Giorgi then “set about defacing the statue – spraying… the words ‘Free Palestine’ and red triangles on the front, and ‘Never again is now’ on the rear”.
On the plinth he sprayed “Globalise the intifada”, “Stop the genocide” and “Zionist war criminal”, jurors heard.
Ratliff said San Giorgi was seen by a heritage warden for the Greater London Authority (GLA) who told him to get down from the statue.
The defendant said he was “doing a protest” and told the warden he “should call the police if he wanted him to get down,” the court heard.
In a statement, the warden also alleged that there was also a cameraman there taking pictures of the statue and the protester.
When officers arrived, they seized items including two red spray cans, a can of NBC acid, and Gorilla glue, the court heard.
San Giorgi was arrested and largely answered “no comment” when interviewed by police, except to say the acid was harmless and used in everyday products, prosecutors said.
Ratliff said the GLA deployed its contractors to conduct initial cleaning that day, but further restoration work was needed.
The total cost – including hire of police barriers, mechanical elevated work platforms for two days, specialised restoration, and emergency call out – was more than £7,000, he told the court.
Ratliff said the fact that San Giorgi “appears to have been concerned about the situation in Gaza cannot provide him with a defence”.
He told jurors: “I just want to make this plain – this case is not about the terrible events in Gaza, the West Bank and Israel, the meaning and application of the word ‘genocide’, the meaning and application of the term ‘Zionist’, or whether or not Winston Churchill was a war criminal.
“You may or may not hold strong views about these things, but you must not let those influence your approach to this case.”
The trial continues.
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