Two other nuclear protesters also requested a temporary release from jail until they receive sentencing for breaking into and damaging a US government facility that enriches and stores weapons-grade uranium in Tennessee.On Wednesday, the three activists were convicted of interfering with national security by breaking into the Y-12 National Security Complex on July 28, 2012 and defacing a uranium processing plant. The group claims their crime was morally driven, and that they trespassed “because the production of nuclear weapons violates everything that is moral and good,” Ralph Hutchinson, coordinator for the Oak Ridge Environmental Peace Alliance, told Reuters after the incident.The activists cut through chain-linked security fences, hung up banners and crime scene tape, hammered off a chunk of the uranium materials facility, and smeared human blood on the walls of the unit where the nuclear bomb component is stored. The New York Times called this the biggest security breach in the history of the atomic complex.The incident served as an embarrassment for US officials, who did not discover the trespassers for several hours and who were forced to shut down the plant after the discovery of the security breach. The facility is the US government’s only warehouse for storing highly enriched uranium.Sister Megan Rice, Michael Walli and Greg Boertje-Obed are now facing up to 20 years in prison for sabotage and 10 years for causing more than $1,000 damage to government property, but won’t receive their sentencing until September 23. Restrained with handcuffs and leg irons, the trio appeared in court on Thursday to request their release until the sentencing.Amul Thapar, the US District Court Judge in Knoxville, Tenn., said he would make a decision on May 14 whether the activists will remain in custody or be released.Prosecutor Jeff Theodore told the court that the government opposes their release, since the group testified that they felt no remorse about what they did. But defense attorney Bill Quigley argued that since his clients had not violated the law between their initial arrest and their trial, they should be allowed to leave jail for the next few months. “They give their word not to engage in that kind of activity pending sentencing,” he said. Jurors found the trio guilty of sabotage and damaging property, but defense attorneys continue to argue that they took part in a symbolic break-in with no intent to harm the facility. They plan to ask the judge to throw out the national security count, on grounds of insufficient evidence. … Read More
83-year-old nun convicted of sabotage for breach of US atomic complex
In what The New York Times labeled the biggest security breach in the history of the atomic complex, the trio broke into the Y-12 National Security Complex on July 28, 2012 and defaced a uranium processing plant.The Y-12 facility has been in operation since 1943 as part of the Manhattan Project, and today is responsible for both the production and maintenance of all uranium parts for the entire US nuclear weapons arsenal. Over the years, the facility has also been the target of nonviolent anti-nuclear protests.Now, a jury in Tennessee has charged the three protesters with sabotaging the plant, with a second charge of damaging federal property.Defense attorneys for the three activists – Sister Megan Rice, 57-year-old Greg Boertje-Obed and Michael Walli, 64 – maintained that the prosecution had overreached.”The shortcomings in security at one of the most dangerous places on the planet have embarrassed a lot of people,” defense lawyer Francis Lloyd said.”You’re looking at three scapegoats behind me,” he addedDefense attorneys also noted that, once the three refused to plead guilty to trespassing, which carries a maximum sentence of 10 years’ imprisonment, the prosecution introduced the charge of sabotage, which carries a maximum prison term of twenty years. They believed the higher charge should have been dismissed.According to the Associated Press, which provided details of the court proceedings, the three activists have no remorse for their actions, and were pleased to have reached one of the most secure areas of the facility.Prosecutor Jeff Theodore noted that the trio’s fate could have been far worse, as that area of the facility allowed guards to use deadly force.”They’re lucky, and thank goodness they’re alive, because they went into the lethal zone,” said Theodore.The three defendants spent two hours inside Y-12, during which time they hung banners, cut through security fences, strung crime-scene tape and sprayed “baby bottles full of human blood” on the exterior portion of the facility.Boertje-Obed, who is a house painter from Duluth, Minnesota, explained why they sprayed the blood.”The reason for the baby bottles was to represent that the blood of children is spilled by these weapons,” he said.While inside the most secure portion of the facility, the three activists managed to hammer off what is described as a “small chunk” of the Highly Enriched Uranium Materials Facility.During cross examination, Sister Rice stated that she wished she had not waited so long to stage a protest within the plant.”My regret was I waited 70 years,” she said.”It is manufacturing which can only cause death.”Prosecutors argued that the breach of security was serious, and caused the plant to shut down for two weeks as security staff were re-trained and defense contractors replaced.Meanwhile, federal officials maintain that there was never any danger of the three activists reaching materials that could be detonated or used to construct an improvised bomb. … Read More
Elderly nun goes on trial for worst breach ever of US atomic complex
Court proceedings began Tuesday in Knoxville, TN for Sister Megan Rice and two other members of the Transform Now Plowshares, an anti-nuke protest group that is charged with crimes related to the July 28, 2012 break-in of the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tennessee.Prosecutors have charged Rice, 57-year-old Greg Boertje-Obed and Michael Walli, 64, under the Sabotage Act for trespassing on the protected site where the United States stores a significant portion of its enriched uranium supply used in weapons making. If convicted, the charge carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.The three defendants willfully admit to their actions last summer but insist on exercising their right to a trial. They were initially charged with destroying property within the complex, depredation against property of the United States in an amount exceeding $1,000 and trespassing onto US Department of Energy property. After refusing a plea deal, though, prosecutors tacked on the sabotage count of injuring national-defense premises last December.“We chose to exercise our constitutional right to a jury trial and refused to bow down to their threats,” the trio said last year before the charges were upgraded. “We remain convinced that making and refurbishing nuclear weapons at Y-12 is both illegal under US and international law, and it is also immoral. Ultimately, we are required to follow the law of love and our consciences.”When the Sabotage Act charge was tacked on in late 2012, the defendants issued a statement saying, “Our consciences compelled us to act at Y-12 Oak Ridge nuclear facility because we knew that the nuclear weapons of mass destruction illegal produced there threaten the well-being of our entire planet.””They are innocent of all these charges and feel that everything they did was legal and moral, and I think they believe that this (new charge) is ridiculous,” defense attorney Bill Quigley told Huffington Post of his clients after the December indictment was unsealed.Prosecutors said the defendants cut through a fence at the Y-12 facility last year and then spent roughly two hours walking the premises, spray-painting slogans and vandalizing the walls of buildings using hammers and human blood.Speaking to the New York Times last August, Sister Megan Rice blamed “the criminality of this 70-year industry” on her case. “We spend more on nuclear arms than on the departments of education, health, transportation, disaster relief and a number of other government agencies that I can’t remember.”After the trespass, though, spending has only gone up at Y-12. Despite being called the nuclear sector’s equivalent of Fort Knox, three protesters with an average age just shy of 70 had no problem entering the site last year and going undetected for hours, allegedly causing $70,000 in damage during that time. A federal spokesman for the site later told The News Sentinel that the government spent $15 million in direct costs following the breach, largely on “modifications to the PIDAS (perimeter intrusion, detection and assessment system), with the installation of additional concertina wire and animal fencing, physical security upgrades — such as additional sensors and cameras — and additional personnel and miscellaneous costs.” After the breach, an Energy Department inspector general wrote of finding “troubling displays of ineptitude” at the complex and a handful of local officials were reassigned. … Read More
Koreas: Kaesong industrial complex silenced
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The last seven South Korean workers left the Kaesong industrial complex in North Korea on May 3 — and with them went the final channel of communication between the two Koreas.
Now silent, Kaesong was a bustling hub, comprising and employing thousands of workers from the North.
Hong Yang-ho, the Chairman of the Kaesong Industrial District Management Committee, said he hoped it would open again: “I’ve repeatedly emphasised in the process of negotiations with North Korea, that the Kaesong industrial complex should be normalised as soon as possible — so that our companies in the complex will minimise the damage and the factories can operate again.”
Angered by UN sanctions and joint US-South Korean military drills, North Korea has repeatedly threatened its neighbour with attack.
Just north of the heavily fortified border between the two Koreas, Kaesong’s operations have been increasingly blocked by Pyongyang.
The now-defunct project was launched in 2000 in a bid to improve ties between the two Koreas.
More about: Diplomatic tension, Korea crisis, North Korea, South Korea
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Kaesong closure upends US ‘playbook’ for Korea
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North Korea blocks South workers from Kaesong zone
North Korea has stopped South Koreans from crossing the border to work at the jointly run Kaesong industrial zone, for the first time since 2009. … Read More
North Korea bans South from joint industrial zone
North Korea told South Korea on Wednesday that it was banning access to their Kaesong joint industrial park, but said South Koreans in the complex would be allowed to leave, officials said. The Kaesong industrial complex is a crucial source of hard currency for the regime in Pyongyang and seen as a…
