by Bruce Gagnon, published on Organizing Notes, October 3, 2024
On Monday eight of us stood trial before a judge in a New Hampshire District Court. The nature of our charges (Trespass and Resisting Arrest) under N.H. law do not allow a jury trial.
The first several hours of the trial were dominated by local, county and state police officers testifying about the nature of the March 22 action by our protest group that blocked the entrance of Elbit Systems. The early morning blockage, prior to workers arriving, lasted about five hours before cops (from various N.H. police departments) cleared the protest.
(Elbit makes weapons for Israel’s genocidal attacks on Palestine, Lebanon and others. Elbit has weapons facilities in dozens of nations around the world. This is likely done to create jobs in the host country in hopes of ‘buying international support’ for Israel’s colonial apartheid system.)
After lunch the defense team began our case. The judge would not allow the full testimony of one expert witness who tried to make the case about the rights and impacts of protest movements.
Then came the testimony of an Iraqi immigrant young doctor who attended medical school in New Hampshire and now works in Portland, Maine. Yusuf was arrested with us at Elbit and spoke beautifully about the human toll of Israeli’s genocidal attacks on the Palestinian people – thus his reason for joining the action. Surprisingly the judge let him talk so Yusuf was able to make many strong moral statements.
I testified next and talked about my role that day as police liaison. I described how I had previously taken this role at large protests in Portland and at the BIW naval shipyard (the destroyers built there are attacking Yemen in support of Israel). I noted that the Portland Chief of Police thanked me for playing that role in a protest where arrests were made. Sadly the Merrimack police had no interest in communication with me once I introduced myself. I was quickly arrested, hours before the others were.
I testified about my time of conversion having grown up in a military family and working on the Nixon presidential campaign in 1968. I tried to join the Air Force in early 1971 but failed my induction physical and had to get a waiver to allow me to join when most young men at that time would do nearly anything to get away from having to go fight in the US war against Vietnam. I talked about the daily rows of body bags lined up on the runway (also loaded with drugs sold to the GI’s on base) and the regular protests outside of Travis AFB which was an airlift base for the war. GI’s boarded huge transport planes, flew to Vietnam, and the planes returned the dead, walking wounded and future PTSD victims. My life was changed on that base.
I told how, while still in the Air Force, I read the book form of The Pentagon Papers, a Rand Corporation secret history of Washington’s war on Vietnam released to the media by whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg. I told the court how I was devastated reading all the lies the government told the Congress and the public to sell the Vietnam war. Just as they have repeatedly done to promote wars in Iraq and now the US’s complicity in Palestine and Lebanon.
I closed by saying that I know that the Nuremberg Law Principles have been adopted as international law. This legal framework resulted from Hitler’s WW2 army having committed genocide against the Jewish people across Europe. Nuremberg proclaims that all citizens have the legal right and duty to intervene to prevent such crimes when they are happening before our eyes. Still on the witness stand, I turned to the judge and said ‘Even this court is required to honor Nuremberg Law’. The judge didn’t buy this offer to join the resistance against US-UK-Israel-NATO war crimes.
Another of our expert witnesses (Lisa Savage was to talk about what Elbit does at the Merrimack facility) was pulled when the judge made it clear that he didn’t wish to listen to another expert witness.
Once the closing statements were done, by the state prosecutor and our defense lawyer, the judge took a 15 minute break. When he returned to the courtroom the verdicts were announced. He held all of us guilty of trespass and declared that three of us were not guilty of Resisting Arrest (RA) but the other five were. I was one of the three that beat the RA rap.
We will have a sentencing meeting with the judge via zoom-type tech on October 7. We are facing considerable fines to cover costs of Merrimack police on the day of the protest event.
Since I was the first arrested (early in the protest) I sat in a cop car hands cuffed behind my back for two hours listening to the police radio and heard calls for the ‘bomb squad’, paddy-wagons to take protesters away and reports of more police arriving from other nearby cities. During my testimony I described how I counted at least 50 cops and our attorney asked what they did. I answered that they stood around enjoying the ‘show’ and often laughing. One local reporter in Merrimack once told me that he’d worked for his media outlet for 20 years, ‘but had never seen anything like this [protest] before’.
The ingenious lock-downs of seven of the defendants to cement-filled tires and to a car with holes on each side, which allowed the activists to reach inside and lock to a third protester, astounded the cops and the media. The all wanted to be there to see how the show turned out.
Two hours after the event started the only woman police office on the scene was told to drive me to the jailhouse and book me. She was furious and took it out on me during my booking process. She didn’t want to leave the show and likely knew she had to drive me because she was a woman. They eventually called her back to ‘the scene of the crime’.
Iran strikes back
While we were in court we learned that Iran had launched hundreds of missiles at Israeli military and energy targets. They avoided hitting civilians – just the opposite of the way the zionists use terror attacks on innocent people.
It made the experience of the trial even more real for us and certainly more determined to continue organizing public protest events at US and Israeli weapons production facilities that are directly contributing to the war crimes now being committed in the Middle East.
~Bruce
PS When I first shared info about the trial I heard from friends in Sweden and South Korea that they had Elbit Systems weapons facilities in their country. They reported that they were inspired to join the fight against Elbit. So our meager March 22 event has helped to spur other action which is good to hear.
*Featured Image: The 8 defendants prior to trial on Oct 1 for blocking entrance of Israeli Elbit Systems weapons factory in Merrimack, New Hampshire
Bruce Gagnon is the Coordinator of the Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space. He was a co-founder of the Global Network when it was created in 1992.