(Guardian-UK) Bibi van der Zee and Rob Evans - Five activists who caused 180,000 pounds damage to a Brighton arms factory were acquitted after they argued they were seeking to prevent Israeli war crimes. A jury found them not guilty after they sabotaged the factory, which they believed was selling military equipment to the Israelis. They are the latest group of peace and climate-change activists to successfully use the "lawful excuse" defense - committing an offense to prevent a more serious crime. In his summing up, Judge George Bathurst-Norman suggested to the jury that "you may well think that hell on earth would not be an understatement of what the Gazans suffered" at the time of Israel's 2009 Gaza operation.
2010-07-01 10:40:33Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive