NORTHAMPTON, Mass. -- Amy Carter and veteran activist Abbie Hoffman vowed Wednesday to put the CIA on trial when they face a jury on charges stemming from an anti-CIA protest at the University of Massachusetts.
The 19-year-old daughter of former president Jimmy Carter and Hoffman, 50, a former member of the Chicago Seven radical group, appeared in Northampton District Court and requested jury trials along with seven other protesters.
They were among 60 people arrested Nov. 24 at a protest against CIA recruitment at the university's Amherst campus in western Massachusetts.
After proceedings finished, Carter and Hoffman told reporters they planned to make their trials a protest against CIA activities and the university's policies toward student rights.
Carter's counsel, former Chicago Seven defense attorney Leonard Weinglass, said he hoped to draw an international field of witnesses to testify against the intelligence agency.
He said he may try to subpoena contra gunrunner Eugene Hasenfus to 'relay how he dropped weapons of murder upon instruction from Washington.'
Hasenfus, an American mercenary, was pardoned and released last month by Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega, following his conviction for delivering arms to contra rebels fighting the Sandinista government in Nicaragua.
'I think we'd like to make this as big a trial as possible and get to the most people we can in the U.S,' said Carter, a sophomore at Brown University in Providence, R.I.
She was charged with disorderly conduct in the demonstration. Hoffman was charged with trespassing and disturbing a school.
As Hoffman spoke against CIA covert actions, one heckler in crowd of onlookers questioned whether he would be able to conduct a similar protest in the Soviet Union, and told him to 'go join the KGB.'
District Court Judge Ann M. Gibbons continued the cases of Carter and Hoffman to Jan. 22 for further pretrial conferences. Weinglass said he hoped for an April court date where Carter, Hoffman and other protesters could be tried together. They will face a six-member jury.
Hoffman and about 50 others were arrested for staging a sit-in at a campus administration building. Carter was among a group of people who police said attempted to block buses carrying Hoffman and other arrested protesters.
The demonstration was sparked by the university-ordered arrests of 11 other protesters who staged a similar anti-CIA rally 10 days earlier.
Following their arrest, university officials banned Hoffman, Carter and all other non-students arrested in the protest from entering the campus.
