News from Belfast

Judge throws out case

At Belfast Laganside court recently, the trial of the Raytheon Nine collapsed when the judge threw it out for lack of evidence.

The defendents from Derry Anti War Coalition walked free after the judge dismissed the case for lack of evidence. Throughout the trial the Nine have maintained that their actions were legitimate as an attempt to prevent war crimes.
The judge was forced to concede this when he stated that the defendents had acted to prevent destruction in Lebanon.

This is a major victory and vindication of the action of the Derry Anti War Coalition and the Raytheon Nine.

The development began to emerge yesterday when, bizarrely, the barrister for the Crown conceded that the 9 were genuine in their belief that Raytheon were active in supplying the U.S. and Israeli war machines in Iraq, Palestine and Lebanon and that sabotaging Raytheon’s equipment would disrupt that supply. What the Crown was then asking the jury to do was convict on the strength of the evidence, whether, at the moment of entering Raytheon, the Nine had smashed computers out of anger and wanton destructiveness. Barristers for the Nine petitioned the judge to dismiss the case as this was something the jury could not find, given that the Crown had already conceded that they had gone in there with the intention to sabotage in order to disrupt the supply chain.
The Judge evidently agreed.

For more information, see www.raytheon9.org