UK Anti-nuke defendants found guilty, only token fine

international | anti-war / imperialism | press release Friday October 29, 2004 15:03 by Eoin Dubsky - Trident Ploughshares

Six ‘Trident Ploughshares’ anti-war activists from Leicester, London and Norwich, who this June entered Burghfield, one of Britain’s WMD bases, and put it out of action for over an hour -- left Reading Magistrates’ Court this afternoon disappointed that the Magistrate had found four of them guilty of criminal damage (the other two had accepted ‘bindovers’ and so the charges against them were dropped), but pleased that their arguments about why their actions were valid under international law were at least heard sympathetically by the Court.

The Magistrate’s sympathy with the sincerity, seriousness and “high moral fibre” of the six, who he understood clearly to be “uncommonly conscientious people”, was shown by the fact that the total of the fines and costs they have been ordered to pay is just £380, which is less even than the MoD’s estimate for the cost of the repairs to the fence which the six cut.

In their summing up, the defendants argued that the very ownership of assembled and ready-to-use nuclear weapons is not only immoral but criminal under international law. The presiding Magistrate agreed that Britain’s having joined the ICC was a new factor, which opened up the possibility of activities that aided and abetted internationally illegal activities, such as Geoff Hoon’s threats last year to use of nuclear weapons against Iraq, being adjudged criminal. If so, then acting to prevent that crime – the crime of maintaining our nuclear threat, as Burghfield/Aldermaston does – might not after all constitute criminal da mage. The Magistrate also made very clear that, under the Nuremberg principles, simply obeying orders is no defence in law. This was especially striking after one of the defendants, Kathryn Amos (a Ph.D in Environmental Science from UEA Norwich, now doing post-doctoral studies in Leeds), cited in her defence a discussion with her interviewing police officer in which the officer declared that he was happy simply to obey orders, in manning Burghfield base. (The ‘Burghfield six’ undertook their action partly so as directly to inform all Burghfield personnel of their rights and responsibilities under the Geneva Conventions and the Nuremberg Laws.) Very disappointingly, however, the Magistrate found the activists guilty anyway, concluding that the case of the six was still not sufficiently dissimilar to a previous case decided against a Trident Ploughshares activist (‘Hutchinson’) in a higher Court on a previous occasion, a decision which (at least in relevantly similar cases) is binding on magistrates.

Rupert Read, press contact for the defendants, said after the verdict, “American Supreme Court Justice John P. Stevens recently declared, in relation to the detention and torture at Guantanamo Bay, that “We must not wield the tools of tyranny even to resist the forces of tyranny.” Nuclear blackmail, which Geoff Hoon recently employed against Iraq, is an obscene tool of tyranny. It must be stopped. ‘The Bughfield six’ have played a real part in the gradual process of stopping it.”

Kathryn Amos added, “It is crucial that our message is understood by those working on nuclear bases: We have no personal enmity against you. We believe that you need to be told the truth about your responsibilities under international law as well as British law. If you were told the truth, we think you would see that what you are engaged in is criminal activity that must end. We hope that you will draw this conclusion, before, one day, it may be too late. We encourage all citizens to do similar actions to that that we took in Burghfield this June, until Britain’s WMDs are disarmed.”

Contacts:

Main press contact: Rupert Read 07946 459066 or 01603 592079 or rupertreadrules (at) yahoo.co.uk

Outside the courtroom: Emma Lei 07748 447224

Defendants available for live radio etc. interviews!:

>Maggie/Zina (from Leicester): 07843 121769

>Kathryn (from Norwich/Leeds): 07803 161723 [Please don’t leave messages on Kathryn’s answermachine, if she doesn’t pick up the call. Thanks]

…Also available from Rupert: hardcopy of the videofootage of the activists entering through the fence at Burghfield. From Emma: more digital photos, from after the trial’s end. And please contact Kathryn, Rupert or Maggie if you are interested in doing a feature article on one or more of the individuals who took this action, now that they are free to speak about it, with the trial now over.



Editors notes:

>>> For detail of the action itself, as the story first broke on June 1st, please goto

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/berkshire/3767061.stm

>>> For background including details of the NPT, the MDA, and other relevant international treaties, please goto www.tridentploughshares.org

>>> For details of Geoff Hoon’s threat to use nuclear WMDs against Iraqi soldiers and civilians, please goto www.cndyorks.gn.apc.org/news/articles/uknukepolicy.htm



>>>The activists who cut into Burghfield comprise a 47 year-old History teacher, a 19 year-old bar-worker, a 43 year-old self-educated single parent, a 30 year-old violin teacher, a 27 year-old sustainable policy adviser, and a 25 year-old university researcher.