Fr. Steve Kelly, S.J. "Crossing The Line?"

Is torture no defense?

At pre-trial hearing, lawyer for two California priests argue that a moral duty compelled them to violate federal law.arrested last November at an Arizona military base on charges of trespass and refusing to follow police orders, faced a pre-trial hearing of their case in federal court in Tucscon on Aug. 13.

The priests, Franciscan Fr. Louis Vitale, 74, and Jesuit Father Steve Kelly, 58, participated in a Nov. 19, 2006 demonstration at Ft. Huachuca near Sierra Vista, Arizona. They were arrested for kneeling to pray on the road leading to Ft. Huachuca’s gate. Police had warned the priests several times that they were trespassing on federal property.

The priests claim U.S. military intelligence at Ft. Huachuca teaches torture interrogation techniques (like those used at Abu Ghraib and, allegedly, at Guantanamo). At the time of the protest, Ft. Huachuca’s commander was Maj. Gen. Barbara Fast, who had been chief intelligence officer in Iraq, responsible for overseeing Abu Ghraib at the time of the tortures there. The priests were trying to deliver a letter to Fast when they were arrested.

Both Vitale (former pastor of St. Boniface Church in San Francisco) and Kelly (a member of the Redwood Catholic Worker) had been imprisoned before for anti-war and anti-torture civil disobedience actions. Last April, prosecutors asked U.S. Magistrate Hector Estrada to imprison the priests until they stood trial, but Estrada released them on their own recognizance. The pre-trial hearing, originally set for June 3, was postponed to August. Estrada said he would consider the priests’ request for a jury trial.

At the pre-trial hearing, the priests’ lawyer, Loyola University law professor William Quigley, called on Estrada to dismiss the charges against the priests, since, he said, the United States has violated international law on the use of torture both before and after Sept. 11, 2001. Quigley presented the judge with evidence for this claim and noted that Fast represented Ft. Huachuca’s connection to U.S. torture policies. Quigley argued against the prosecution’s motion to prohibit certain testimony regarding U.S. torture policies at the trial, since the violation of international law they represent justify the actions taken by the priests, according to Quigley.

Arguing for the government, the Army Judge Advocate General, Capt. Evan Seamone, told Estrada witnesses would testify that techniques taught at Ft. Huachuca were in line with Geneva Conventions and U.S. law and did not promote torture. Documented reports of torture, said Seamone, were performed by a few aberrant individuals or by the CIA or non-military intelligence personnel.

Prosecutors argued that Estrada should consider jailing Vitale pending his trial, since the priest, they said, violated a court order not to engage in actions violating local, state, or federal laws.

A few days before the hearing, Vitale “crossed the line” at a Nagasaki Day demonstration at the Nevada nuclear weapons test site.

Estrada himself censured Vitale for disregarding the court order. Estrada is expected, by the end of August, to decide on the issues presented at the hearing and set a date for a trial.

Original article (here)