Fascinating that two men who broke into an RAF base to sabotage US B-52 bombers by clogging their engines with nuts and bolts were acquitted after arguing that they were acting to prevent war crimes in Iraq despite the judge instructing the jury to ignore the wider issues relating to Britain's decision to go to war.
According to The Guardian here the two men argued that they were attempting to disable the B52 bombers in order to prevent them from taking part in attacks on Iraq and in order to prevent war crimes and loss of life and property in Iraq. Specifically they argued that war crimes would be committed because the B52s carried cluster weapons which would scatter unexploded bomblets which would kill and injure civilians. They also argued that the aircraft were carrying bombs tipped with depleted uranium that would spread radioactivity.
This seems to be a fascinating precedent and I wonder where this will leave future legal actions against say protesters at Aldermaston or those who wish to clamber all over coal fired power stations to prevent global warming?
2 comments:
There is no legal precedent made. This is just one jury in one case. The jury were probably protesting about the use of a hammer to crack an egg, and didn't want these protesters to go down for 10 years.
Interesting indeed.
Post a Comment