Press Releases & Updates 1999
19th January 1999
Query over Security at Nuclear Weapons Base as Activist is Admonished
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As Trident Ploughshares 2000 activist Katri Silvonen was found guilty
and admonished today in Helensburgh District Court on charges related to
her swim into the submarine dock at Faslane Naval Base on 18th August
last year, her defence lawyer, Stephen Fox, queried the quality of
security at the base.
Katri (21), from Finland was charged with breaches of the bye-laws that
define the security areas at the base, after swimming across the Gareloch
at midnight with 2 colleagues, all of them equipped to inflict disabling
damage on a Trident submarine. At the witness stand her defence was that
she had been acting to uphold international law, following years of
campaigning against nuclear weapons that began with her realisation that
the whole planet was under threat from these weapons. She said: " In
Finland we have the Nato threat on one side and the Russian arsenal on the
other. It became obvious to me that we are all at risk."
Local resident Una Campbell, a long term protester against the existence of
the nuclear weapons installations on her doorstep, said:
" It was humbling to hear this young woman from Finland give such a clear
and coherent summary of the environmental, moral and legal case against
nuclear weapons and of the duty that falls on all of us to resist."
In finding Katri guilty Justice of the Peace Joe Scullion made no reference
to her defence. The charges against her swimming colleague Krista van
Velzen (24), from the Netherlands, were dropped after the court failed to
provide an interpreter.
Katri’s lawyer Stephen Fox said:
"There will be serious public concern about security at the base. These
swimmers were in the water for over an hour before they were discovered not
far from one of the Trident submarines. Their tactics and their equipment
were relatively simple. The replies in court today from Ministry of Defence
personnel do not give me with any confidence that they would be able to
deal with highly trained and sophisticated intruders."
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Trident Ploughshares,
0845 45 88 366
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