A UK Green Party member who proposed the ultimately successful “Zionism is racism” motion at the party conference last week is the “close friend” of an al-Qaeda terrorist who planned a suicide bombing at Heathrow Airport to target passengers arriving from Israel or the United States.
Lubna Speitan is a British-Palestinian artist, activist, and author of the controversial motion that describes Zionism as racist and calls for a single Palestinian state”
As first reported by The Telegraph and The Times, Speitan offered to testify in the defence of Minh Quang Pham, jailed in the US for a plot to detonate a backpack filled with shrapnel dipped in rat poison in the airport arrivals lounge.
The Jerusalem Post confirmed this by reviewing US federal court documents relating to the case: United States v. Minh Quang Pham, No. 1:12-cr-00423 (AJN), Southern District of New York.
Speitan’s attempt to appear as defense witness for Pham
A 2015 court order concerning Pham’s proposed defense witnesses specifically discusses Speitan. The order says that Pham requested that Speitan’s deposition be taken because a medical condition supposedly “prevented her from travelling by air.”
The order identifies Speitan as a “close friend” of Pham. It does not suggest she knew of Pham’s criminal activity or terrorist affiliation.
The judge ultimately refused to authorize the deposition, finding the showing insufficient and the proposed testimony insufficiently material.
Pham, a British citizen who trained with al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) in Yemen, was arrested by British authorities in 2012 and extradited to the US in 2015.
He pleaded guilty in 2016 to providing material support to AQAP and other terrorism offenses and was sentenced to 40 years in prison.
He was resentenced to 44 years in prison in 2025 after prosecutors presented additional evidence concerning his planned attack.
Speitan ‘remains friends’ with the convicted terrorist
Asked by The Telegraph this week whether the two remain friends, Speitan reportedly said: “Yes, it’s still the case.”
“What was, hasn’t changed,” she said, adding that she believed he had been “targeted” by “the system.”
Speitan then reportedly accused The Telegraph of an “insulting” line of questioning that is aimed at demonizing Palestinians, before suggesting Pham had been wrongfully accused.
A Green Party spokesperson told British media that “Lubna Speitan holds no party positions other than being a member.”
“The Green Party takes all allegations of this nature seriously. Where members have expressed views that do not fit in with the party’s values, we have internal processes to investigate,” it added.
She supports ‘the armed struggle,’ will not condemn Hamas
Spetian has previously said that Hamas should not be labelled as a terrorist group.
She has said on more than one occasion, such as during a September 21, 2025 event in Birmingham, that she supports “our right to the armed struggle” and will not condemn the “resistance” of an occupied people. The event was organized by Protect Palestine.
Spetian was also previously filmed saying Zionists would be “hunted in the same way as the Nazi oppressors were,” adding that this would not happen without force.
