Advertisement

A federal jury Wednesday convicted seven anti-nuclear activists of...

SYRACUSE, N.Y. -- A federal jury Wednesday convicted seven anti-nuclear activists of damaging military equipment in a protest against the cruise missile at Griffiss Air Force Base last Thanksgiving.

The four women and three men were found guilty of damaging government property and conspiracy to damage government property, but innocent of damaging national defense.

Advertisement

Each could receive a sentence of up to 15 years in prison when sentenced by U.S. District Judge Howard Munson.

A jury of eight women and four men deliberated for 7 hours before reaching the verdict at 4:10 p.m.

Throughout the trial, which began May 14, the so-called Griffiss Plowshare 7 admitted to breaking into a Griffiss hangar in the pre-dawn darkness of Nov. 24, hammering aircraft engines and the bomb-bay doors of a B-52 bomber, and scrawling anti-nuclear slogans in paint and their own blood.

The base is located in Rome, N.Y.

But they denied they did it to damage national security, instead saying the attack was designed to call attention to the air-launched Cruise missiles stored at the Strategic Air Command facility.

Munson dealt a major setback to the defendants May 30 by refusing to allow the 'defense of necessity,' under which the Plowshares were trying to prove that the vandalism was legally and morally justifiable to prevent the greater harm of nuclear war.

Advertisement

The judge said defense witnesses provided testimony contradictory to the necessity defense when they mentioned options available to the defendants other than vandalism to lessen the danger of nuclear war. In addition, he ruled that the defendants did not prove that nuclear war was imminent.

In final summations Tuesday evening, U.S. Attorney Frederick Scullin told the jury it need not concern itself with the weighty question of nuclear policy.

'Their motives, no matter how good, is not a defense,' he said.

The defendants maintained the hammer and crowbar attack was only a symbolic gesture aimed at disarmament.

'Please try to understand, our intent is to rob death of the last word for a change,' said defendant Elizabeth McAlister, 44, of Baltimore, a former Roman Catholic nun and wife of peace activist Philip Berrigan.

'Maybe the greatest symbol we can bring to this court is the surrendering of our own freedom,' she said.

In addition to McAlister, the defendants are Vern Rossman, 56, of Dorchester, Mass.; Kathleen Rumpf, 32, of Marlboro, N.Y. Clare Grady, 25, of Ithaca, N.Y.; Jacqueline Allen, 22, of Hartford, Conn.; Karl Smith, 27, of Baltimore; and Dean Hammer, 29, of New Haven, Conn.

The Plowshares movement has been active in the United States since 1980, when eight people broke into a General Electric Plant in King of Prussia, Pa., poured blood on a missile nose-cone shield and hammered equipment. All eight were convicted and received prison sentences of up to 10 years. Both Hammer and Berrigan were members of the group.

Advertisement

Latest Headlines