THE Crown Prosecution Service’s bid to overturn the decision to throw out the terrorism case against Kneecap star Liam Og O hAnnaidh “is at odds with the principle that the law should be coherent,” the High Court heard today.

The rapper, known as Mo Chara, was accused of displaying a flag in support of proscribed terror organisation Hezbollah at a gig at the O2 Forum in north London in November 2024.

But the case was thrown out in September last year, with chief magistrate Paul Goldspring ruling the proceedings were “instituted unlawfully.”

Judge Goldspring had agreed with Mr O hAnnaidh’s lawyers that prosecutors needed to seek the permission of the Attorney General to charge the rapper before informing him on May 21 that he would be charged with a terror offence.

This permission was given the following day, which the court heard meant the charge fell outside the six-month timeframe in which criminal charges against a defendant can be brought.

Appealing today, Paul Jarvis KC for the CPS argued the timeframe started “when the defendant appears before the magistrate’s court to answer the charge he faces.”

But Jude Bunting KC, for Mr O hAnnaidh, said that no previous case supported this interpretation of when proceedings are “instituted.”

“The appellant’s case is at odds with the principle that the law should be coherent: the Crown invites the court to interpret the relevant statutory scheme in a manner leading to absurd results, whereby criminal proceedings would be deemed to have been ‘instituted’ at multiple different points in the same set of proceedings,” he added.

Lord Justice Edis and Mr Justice Linden will hand down their ruling at a later date.