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B52 Two Hung Jury

  
 
Leidan
12:02 / 16.10.06
www.b52two.org

The 'B52 Two', Toby Olditch and Philip Pritchard, attempted a pretty radical direct action in March 2003 – just before the war on Iraq began, they attempted to break into RAF Fairford and disable a number of B52 bombers by fucking up the engines with paint and nuts and bolts, and attacking targeting systems with hammers. Unfortunately they were caught before they managed to get to the planes (though they did get past 3 cordons of security and cut the fence) – the trial ran through last week, ending with quite a positive result of a hung jury – i.e., they do not at this time have to spend 10 years in prison. I watched a fair amount of the trial here in Bristol together with some friends and family of the two (Toby Olditch and I were briefly at the same university) and it seemed to proceed with all fairness bearing in mind the inherent limiting factors of the Law, and also the fact the defendants were judged by the House of Lords a while back not to be allowed to argue that the war on Iraq itself was illegal as part of their defence.

Although the Crown prosecution will probably attempt a retrial, this result furthers the achievement of the recent pitstop ploughshares action in Ireland, (http://www.warontrial.com/) in which a group of activists from the Catholic Worker Movement attempted to disarm a U.S. Navy plane, were caught, and were recently acquitted. The essence of the defence in I think both the cases, certainly in this most recent one, is that the defendants proceeded with their attempt to cause damage to private property in the belief that this action would prevent war crimes, or disproportionate damage to property/people elsewhere in the world. Apparently, although there are of course many legal subtleties, it can be argued that to proceed in this action with this belief is a legal action.

This seems to present interesting avenues for very effective nonviolent direct action. It doesn't allow one to intervene in just any military affair; there have to be some nasty weapons/dubious motives at play – in this case cluster bombs and uranium tipped weapons – but even so, for those with the extreme courage required to go out and infiltrate an airbase, the opportunity is there to do some relatively legal, non-useless actions... though a tremendous amount of legal research etc is necessary, as you almost certainly WILL get caught.

Are there infinite ramifications for direct action here, or will such acts soon be clamped down upon hard? Interesting. But besides such ponderings, join me in saying hurrah that these two gentlemen are not – yet at least – spending any more time in jail.
 
 
Disco is My Class War
01:58 / 17.10.06
Yeah, that's great, Leidan.
 
 
Leidan
10:10 / 18.10.06
Do people think this is not an important example or case, then?

It seems to me like there is something of a crisis in direct political action in this country; any new tactics deserve discussion.
 
 
pointless & uncalled for
13:18 / 18.10.06
Hung jury's don't really constitute precedential material and therefore the ramifications are pretty much limited. Only at the point which the CPS decide to abandon further court action or a decisive conclusion to a court case will tell us if there is any long range meaning for those intent on direct action.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
14:04 / 18.10.06
It is interesting - as a point of law, the question of whether you can claim to be attempting to avert loss of life or damage to property by depriving a government of the use of its military tools can't be divorced from whether those tools are to be put to a legal use, though, surely? So, the 1971 Criminal Damage Act, which depends on allowing property damage to prevent somebody else damaging property illegally, and the 1967 Criminal Law Act, which allows it to prevent a crime, which as I understand it were the lawful excuses the defence was employing here, depend on the purposes the planes were being put to being illegal. Which leads on to:

here have to be some nasty weapons/dubious motives at play – in this case cluster bombs and uranium tipped weapons

The thing here being that, in essence, you'd be creating a class of conventional weapon the use of which would always be illegal regardless of the legality of the conflict in which they were being used, and illegal in a civil court as well as under international law. Which sounds to me like a very good idea, but I don't think anyone's going to go for.

If they are acquitted, and the legality of the war is not a consideration, things basically go a bit mad. Let's say a protestor is arrested while approaching an airfield with a pair of bolt cutters. Is the arrest correct, as he was trespassing on private property? Is the arrest actually assault, as he is on a legal mission to prevent unlawful damage? How about if the RAF then claim that they thought he was heading for a plane laden with kosher, "legal" weaponry?

Ultimately, what would need to happen would be a legal acknowledgement that the war was not sanctioned by UN Resolution 1441, and thus that any attack on Iraq was in contravention of international law. The Federal Administrative Court in Germany appears to have done that, as reported here, in a report on a German Major who refused to follow orders that he felt were supportive of the war in Iraq, which he felt to be an illegal war. However, it appears that the Constitional Court, which as far as I understand German law is the highest court in the land but restricted to consideration of constitutional issues, decided that the Major should be restored to his rank and the complaint against him dropped not because the war was illegal on a level relating to the German Constitution's prohibition against participating in wars of aggression (Article 26), but because the refusal was made in good faith and in exceptional circumstances (that is, in the circumstance of a war that was adjudged to be a war of aggression by the Major and ultimately by the Federal Administrative Court). As far as I can tell, that creates an odd situation in which it is all right for the German state to provide support to countries engaged in the war, but any member of the military who does not wish to join in can refuse, and that is all right also.

Could anyone clarify that for me?
 
 
Leidan
18:57 / 18.10.06
...How about if the RAF then claim that they thought he was heading for a plane laden with kosher, "legal" weaponry?

Ultimately, what would need to happen would be a legal acknowledgement that the war was not sanctioned by UN Resolution 1441, and thus that any attack on Iraq was in contravention of international law.

I don't know alot about legal matters, but it appears in this case and in your example from Germany, that the national courts do not want to/cannot deal with issues of the legality of conflict. Where does national and international law conflict here? Are national courts ideally aligned with international law?

In this case the crown certainly wanted to establish that the defendants were under obligation to their national law primarily; but I guess the important decision was made by the House of Lords in ruling that in this case, the Jury could not consider the legality of the war itself. I have very little information about this particular ruling, so I can't say why or how...

As for the kosher/non-kosher weaponry, the important thing is apparently the belief of the defendants. So if they reasonably believed that they were going to prevent a war crime, i.e. that weaponry would be used which could by its nature bring about a war crime under international law, they have a defence. But, as you can tell, it's all very confused, which I think was the ultimate state of the Jury. One important thing is the persuasion of the Jury that you are a responsible citizen who actually did the research and held a reasonable belief, which is actually quite a limiting factor in preventing an outbreak of 'anarchy' (judgement withheld here whether such anarchy would be good or bad).

The Crown in fact invoked something similar to one of your examples; he asked the defendants what the reaction of the base would be if activists came to the front gate asking whether they could go smash up some planes (because it's legal, don't you know). The defendants tried to avoid the question; I think they wanted to say something like 'well, maybe we could persuade them...'
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
22:23 / 18.10.06
I think that the thing about Germany was that the Federal Administrative Court precisely did say that the war in Iraq was in contravention of international law. Which meant that, I suspect, the Constitutional Court had to say that it was not relevant to the case on a constitutional level, to avoid among other things having to arrest Tony Blair and George Bush on the next state visit.

So if they reasonably believed that they were going to prevent a war crime, i.e. that weaponry would be used which could by its nature bring about a war crime under international law, they have a defence.

Well, sort of, I think. In the case of the Trident protestors, I think the Sherriff said that it was impossible to ascribe any criminal intent. But ignorantia legis non excusat, at least in English law. So, hmm. I'm not sure where you go with that one.

Ah, yes - quote here:

The sheriff said she could not "conclude definitively" whether or not this was true, but that she had "heard nothing which would make it seem to me that the accused acted with criminal intent"."
 
  
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