Brief updates on previously reported arrests

ALLIANT TECHSYSTEMS:

Tom Bottolene and Sr. Betty McKenzie face trial January 29 in Hennepin County District Court, charged with felony damage to property during a symbolic blood action at the Minneapolis area arms factory. Using red tempera paint, the two and a sixteen year old minor, outlined four victims lying on the ground. The four peace activists portraying the victims were charged with trespassing and, following a three-day trial, found not guilty by a Hennepin County jury on October 13. Tom Hooley, Sr. Jane McDonald, Kathleen Ruona and Mary Vaughan argued their own defense and claimed their actions were justified as an effort to raise awareness that Alliant Techsystems produces weapons likely to result in civilian casualties, violating international laws and treaties that supersede local trespass laws...

MISSILE SILO N-7:

"Fool for God and Humanity's Sake" Rev. Carl Kabat, OMI, will face trial on trespass charges next March 19 in federal court in Denver. A hearing on pre-trial motions regarding a defense based on international law will be held March 1, at which time expert testimony may be heard. Last August 6, Hiroshima Day, Kabat donned a clown suit and entered the Minuteman III missile launch site in a witness for peace. Two years earlier, the Minuteman III Plowshares (see page 6) had taken hammers to the same silo to initiate its disarmament. Kabat's co-defendant Bill Sulzman, who remained outside the missile site fence but was arrested on state charges, had those charges dismissed December 14. For more information on Kabat's case, contact Bill Sulzman at P.O. Box 915, Colorado Springs, CO 80901...

ISRAELI EMBASSY:

Nine people arrested at the Israeli Embassy in Washington, D.C. on September 28 had their charges dismissed the evening before their January 18 trial. The arrests came at the end of a 3 day gathering for imprisoned Israeli nuclear whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu. This action, demanding nuclear abolition and Mordechai's immediate release, was the final entry on a long rap sheet of Sam Day, nuclear resister and dedicated coordinator of the U.S. Campaign to Free Mordechai Vanunu, who died on January 26 (see Dedication.) Mordechai was released from several months of solitary confinement in October. Please write to him at Ashkelon Prison, Ashkelon, Israel...

STOP THE MILITARIZATION OF SPACE:

In November, a Brevard County Court fined Maria Telesca-Whipple $100 and banned her from any federal installations for six months, following her October 7 arrest for trespass at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. In California, 22 people, also arrested on October 7 when they entered Vandenberg Air Force Base, are being managed in two groups, one awaiting a trial date from the federal court in Los Angeles, and the other not yet informed of their status in the same court...

PEOPLE'S CAMPAIGN FOR NONVIOLENCE:

Charges against more than 100 people arrested in front of the White House last August at a protest against the Iraq sanctions have been dismissed...

NEW YORK AIR NATIONAL GUARD:

The judge has dismissed an Air Force claim of $32,000 restitution against six opponents of the Air National Guard's participation in bombing Iraq, arrested last winter at Hancock Air National Guard Base in upstate New York...

MISSOURI AIR NATIONAL GUARD:

Three people who brought medical supplies to the part-time warriors headed for Iraq from Lambert Field last September will face trial for trespass February 15 in St. Louis County Court. At a hearing January 4, the three refused, while co-defendant Susan Lee accepted, for medical reasons, a plea offer that required payment of $51 court costs...

PORTLAND BOMBING PROTESTS:

A court hearing on December 1 concerned the remaining six of 26 people arrested December, 1998 while protesting the renewed bombing of Iraq. Three were acquitted, and three cases remain unsettled on an appeal regarding the standard of proof necessary for a misdemeanor versus violation level of offense: "beyond a reasonable doubt" versus "preponderance of evidence"...

COOK NUCLEAR POWER PLANT:

A dozen people arrested last August at the Michigan reactor site go on trial for trespass January 30 at the Berrien County Court House...