Press Release:
Prestwick War Crime Detectives Arrested after Boarding US Plane

Early this morning Trident Ploughshares activists boarded a US
military plane at Prestwick Airport in the process carrying out an
investigation of the involvement by the British authorities in covert
and active collusion in Israeli war crimes in Lebanon.

The group, Marcus Armstrong (46) from Milton Keynes, Chris Bluemel
(35) from Southampton, and Angie Zelter (55) from Norfolk, spent some
time in the plane before being arrested by civilian police. Another
group, Sarah Lasenby (68) from Oxford, Douglas Shaw (56) and Jean
Oliver (48), both from Biggar, and Matt Bury (50) from Somerset, also
took part in the investigation and are now in custody in Kilmarnock
police station. They are all expected to appear in Ayr Sheriff Court
on Tuesday.

Air freighters run by Atlas Air, a civilian airline contracted to the
US military, were spotted at Prestwick on 5th August and one of them
is suspected of carrying armaments, which could include "bunker
buster" bombs tipped with depleted uranium. The Detectives have
looked for evidence of such flights and attempted to interview
security personnel.

The Detectives said: "We acted as War Crime Detectives. Britain is
breaching international law by allowing Prestwick to be used by the
US to fly bombs to Israel. Britain is also defying the law by
deploying weapons of mass destruction and developing a new generation
of these weapons. We need a international humanitarian law to
restrain warmongering governments. It is vital that international law
is upheld and equally vital that ordinary citizens take the
initiative in exposing state crime.

The US military air traffic here is more extensive than we had known.
The security is extremely lax."

Trident Ploughshares is an open and non-violent campaign against the
UK's nuclear weapons. At the same time as the War Crime Detectives
were at Prestwick, fellow activists at the Trident Ploughshares camp
at Coulport on Loch Long were planning further actions against the
nuclear weapon bases there, RNAD Coulport and Faslane.

A spokesperson said: "The weapons which devastated Hiroshima and
Nagasaki 61 years ago are still a horrifying reality. As our friends
expose the crimes at Prestwick we will be active at this end of the
chain of terror. For the US Israel is a key strategic partner,
especially because of Middle East oil. As a result anything they do
is played down and their nuclear weapons are accepted, all of which
undermines international law."