Green motion proposer offered to testify for convicted al-Qaeda supporter
Lubna Speitan, the British-Palestinian artist who proposed the Green Party conference motion defining Zionism as an ideology backing "an ethnonationalist Jewish state", offered to act as a defence witness for a man later jailed for 40 years in the United States for supporting al-Qaeda.
The BBC said US court papers from 2015 listed Ms Speitan as a "close friend" of Minh Quang Pham and said she had offered to give evidence for him BBC News. Mr Pham pleaded guilty to supporting al-Qaeda. He denied planning a suicide attack.
Ms Speitan's motion was passed and became Green Party policy. It called for a "single democratic Palestinian state in all of historic Palestine", an area that includes modern-day Israel. Israel banned Green leader Zack Polanski from entering the country in response to the motion.
The 2015 court papers said Ms Speitan would give "critical testimony regarding Pham's mental state" for a mental-health defence relevant to guilt. The papers said a medical condition stopped her giving evidence in person.
Mr Pham is a Vietnamese-born British national who had lived in London. He travelled from the United Kingdom to Yemen in late 2010, spent seven months there, and was arrested at Heathrow Airport in July 2011. Officers found him with a live round of ammunition.
He was extradited to the US in 2015 and sentenced to 40 years in prison in 2016 after admitting three counts linked to support for al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. He was 33 when sentenced in the Manhattan federal court in the Southern District of New York, where he was known as "Amin" US Department of Justice.
US prosecutors said Mr Pham had been directed by al-Qaeda leader Anwar al-Awlaki to set off explosives in Heathrow's arrivals area after training in Yemen. Mr Pham denied planning a suicide attack.
Ms Speitan wrote a 2016 letter to the New York judge describing Mr Pham as "one of the kindest, honest, most sincere" people she had known. The Jewish Chronicle first reported the letter, and the BBC said it has seen it. The papers contain no suggestion Ms Speitan knew of Mr Pham's criminal activities when they knew each other.
The BBC said The Telegraph reported Ms Speitan replied "Yes, it's still the case" when asked if she remained friends with Mr Pham, and said she believed Mr Pham had been "targeted" by "the system".
The Green Party said Ms Speitan holds no official positions. The party said it "takes all allegations of this nature seriously". A spokesperson said: "Where members have expressed views that do not fit in with the party's values, we have internal processes to investigate." The party has responded. It has not removed the policy.
The conference papers for the debate were published as the "Green Party Autumn Conference 2026 – FINAL Agenda" on 3 October 2026. The document contains the text "Zionism is Racism" Green Party Autumn Conference Agenda.
The broader context here is conference sovereignty. In the Greens, conference — a vote of members — makes policy, not the leader. That helps explain how a motion from an ordinary member can become party policy within days, and why the leader then faces the diplomatic fallout.
Looking at what this means for party management, the questions are familiar to anyone who follows party conferences. How was the motion grouped with others and checked. What vetting applies to proposers. What internal process now applies, and to what timetable. The party's lines on official roles and internal processes leave those points open.
For Westminster watchers, the test is practical rather than rhetorical. Will the policy stand, be clarified or be revisited at a future conference. Will the investigation lead to an outcome. And will the entry ban on Mr Polanski affect engagement with Israel. Those answers will shape how other parties handle this episode.
