Plowshares nuns anticipate dismissal of charges

national | miscellaneous | news report Wednesday February 26, 2003 11:55 by Eoin Dubsky - Refueling Peace info at refuelingpeace dot org 087-6941060

Sacred Earth & Space Plowshares III in court

This is a public statement of what happened in court written by Anabel Dwyer, who is Sr. Ardeth's advisory council. For details of the plowshares disarmament action on October 6th see http://www.globenet.free-online.co.uk/reports/3sistersplowsharesb.htm

Judge Robert Blackburn demonstrated expected and proper adherence to the
rule of law and fair procedure at the hearing on "the Nuns case" on Friday.
As a result, Sisters Carol Gilbert, Jackie Hudson and Ardeth Platte
anticipate an early dismissal of the felony sabotage and depredation of
property charges brought against them. At the motions hearing the Nuns
proffered further corroboration of their extensively briefed understanding
of the gross illegality and criminality of the US's ongoing threat or use of
the first-strike, high-alert, 300 kiloton nuclear Minuteman III, N-8 in
northern Colorado. In their "Sacred Earth and Space Plowshares II"
resistance action, October 6, 2002, the Nuns non-violently inspected and
exposed the nuclear missile by lowering two sections of a wire fence. They
symbolically disarmed the nuclear missile by hammering on the tracks and
putting their blood in the form of crosses on the silo cover.

Without substantive dispute from the Prosecutor, international and criminal
law expert Professor Francis Boyle testified that any threat or use of the
Minuteman III, N-8, a high-alert, first strike 300 kiloton nuclear weapon of
mass extermination, is a crime against peace, war crime and crime against
humanity under binding US and international law. International law Professor
Ved Nanda of Denver University Law School made it clear that the US threat
to attack Iraq was real and in violation of basic US and international law.
The Prosecutor was visibly shaken by Professor Nanda's assertion that the US
has not excluded use of the nuclear Minuteman III ICBM in Iraq and that the
Nuns non-violent and symbolic action was reasonable in the very dangerous
circumstances.

It seems unlikely that Judge Blackburn could find that the detailed fact and
law testimony are irrelevant since the Nuns carefully showed their direct
relevance to the elements of the crimes charged. Sister Ardeth Platte said,
"We have shown that under US law the nuclear ICBM Minuteman III is obviously
not "defense-material" as defined by law. The Prosecutor seems to be making
an undue fuss over our legal and carefully measured methods to fulfill our
current legal obligation for nuclear disarmament. Non-violent exposure,
inspection and disarmament one nuclear weapon at a time is the only
reasonable and possible way for our great democracy to live within the rule
of law."

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P.S. The Pit-stop Ploughshares crew (http://www.indymedia.ie/cgi-bin/newswire.cgi?id=26615) are still in Limerick Prison, and you can write to them at the following address:
c/o Br. Anthony, Glenstal Abbey, Murroe, Co. Limerick