Three anti arms trade activists who chained themselves to concrete barrels outside Brighton arms dealers EDO MBM last Summer were found guilty in Brighton Magistrate’s Court yesterday.

Rob Frost, Sam Miller and Sarah Harris took part in the blockade last July to highlight EDO MBM’s role in supplying weapons for use by the Israeli army in Lebanon. The Israeli military’s bombing campaign claimed over a thousand lives in just a few weeks.

Throughout the case the prosecution argued that EDO MBM did not supply weapons to Israel. However, they refused to disclose details of their business or copies of their export licences to the defence. Peter Davis, ex-director of the factory, was questioned for several hours over the lawfulness of the factory’s business.

The defence argued that the protesters’ action was necessary to highlight the war crimes that were going on in Lebanon. In his closing submissions barrister Tony Stanford, defending, said ‘the trains winding their way to concentration camps would not have been reported by today’s media. These events have been repeated in Rwanda, in Sudan and now Lebanon’

Two of the defendants in the case had witnessed first hand the violence used by the Israeli military against Palestinian civilians.

The defendants were sentenced to a 12 month conditional discharge. There will be an appeal against the decision.

Sarah Harris, one of the defendants, said, ‘We took part in the protest to raise public awareness that the war crimes being committed in Lebanon and elsewhere do not happen in a vacuum.

Companies like EDO MBM are complicit in these crimes by supplying weapons which they know will be used to kill civilians’.

There will be a demonstration at the Brighton Magistrates court today at 12.30
link to the original action BBC report

 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/southern_counties/5187726.stm

and original press release -  http://www.smashedo.org.uk/pressreleases/06-07-17.htm