Update on Elbit trial sentencing

It's taken almost a month to get the final clarifications from the court in New Hampshire. The paperwork arrived this week. Here is the final update from our sentencing hearing by the judge:

After being found guilty for blocking the worker entrance to Israel-owned Elbit Systems weapons facility in Merrimack, New Hampshire we were sentenced by the judge on October 7.

The eight of us involved in the trial were all found guilty of trespassing and 5 of the 8 defendants were found guilty of Resisting Arrest (RA).  I was one of the three who had the RA charges dropped by the judge during our October 1 trial.

At the October 7 sentencing the judge called on us to make any statement that we wished. I was the first to go and this is what I said:

Obviously, I understood that we very likely might be arrested. The way I see it now is as follows:

• The government is under the control of the MIC, AIPAC and Wall Street
• Corporate media is largely complicit with the genocide taking place in Palestine and Lebanon, whether NPR, BBC or the New York Times. They read the talking points supplied by the CIA.
  

My understanding that Nuremberg Law, after the unforgivable genocide of Jews across Europe by Hitler's army during WW2, makes clear that we all have a legal right and a duty to intervene to prevent such crimes. It is pretty clear to me.

Elbit Systems, with weapons production facilities in dozens of nations, must be challenged, thus I felt compelled by conscience to participate in the non-violent action.

During the Iraq war I was watching CSPAN TV one evening and heard a speaker introduced as then Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's 'strategy guy'. The speaker was Thomas Barnett, then a professor at the Navy War College. He told the audience that America's role in the world in the coming years would be 'Security Export'. It is no coincidence today that America's #1 industrial export is weapons.

I invite you judge to yourself give something to the current international movement to help stop this genocide in Palestine and Lebanon.

After all the defendants had made their statements the judge heard our attorney argue for community service rather than steep fines. There was much back-and-forth between the prosecutor, the judge and our attorney.

In the end the judge has decided that whose with two charges should have to pay $620 in fines or do 42 hours of community service.

Those like myself with just one charge would either have to pay $310 in fines or do 21 hours of community service.

All of us also have a two-year 'keep out of trouble' requirement which means if we get arrested again heavier charges will kick back in against us. 

So I have chosen to do the 21 hours of community service and will perform this at a local church that has a weekly supper for people on the margins of life.

In the end I was proud to have been involved in the action at Elbit Systems. In the meantime I will still keep protesting just as I have been doing.

Bruce