Protesting priests escape jail before torture trial

Despite calls by federal prosecutors to jail two priests protesting against torture training at Ft. Huachuca, Arizona, a federal judge has allowed them to remain free until their trial, which is set for June 4, 2007. Fr. Louis Vitale, a 74-year-old Franciscan priest, and Fr. Steve Kelly, a 58-year-old Jesuit priest, were arraigned in federal court in Tucson on federal and state charges of trespass and refusal to follow police orders at an anti-torture protest at Ft. Huachuca. The federal prosecutor asked the judge to put the two priests in jail before their trial saying they had a substantial history of arrests and were likely to be involved in similar protests and commit other protest crimes unless jailed. After the prosecutor admitted that the actions charged were nonviolent, the court released the priests on their own recognizance. The priests were arrested on Nov. 19, 2006, at Ft. Huachuca, in Sierra Vista, AZ, after they knelt to pray on the road approaching the gate to the fort. They were part of a crowd of 120 people peacefully protesting against military intelligence training at Ft. Huachuca that fosters torture. The protesters objected to the teaching of torture interrogation tactics at Ft. Huachuca by US military intelligence–tactics used at Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo. Documents detailing Department of Defense (DOD) spying on protesters outside the Fort in 2004 have been made public. The DOD described the protest as a "credible threat" to national security. The Army Field Manual on interrogation (Human Resource Exploitation Training Manual) was written at Ft. Huachuca. A number of the officers and soldiers responsible for human rights abuses at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison have worked at or were trained at the Headquarters for Army Intelligence Training at Ft. Huachuca. The two priests tried to speak to enlisted soldiers and deliver a letter to Major General Barbara Fast, commissioner of the post, denouncing torture and the Military Commissions Act of 2006. General Fast is the highest ranking intelligence officer tied to the torture at Abu Ghraib. Two other soldiers with ties to Ft. Huachuca are among the 28 implicated in the beating deaths of two prisoners in Afghanistan in 2002. Counter-protesters waved flags and accused those protesting against torture of being supporters of Islamic terrorists. Vitale is a member of Pace e Bene, whose mission is "to develop the spirituality and practice of active nonviolence as a way of living and being and as a process for cultural transformation." Vitale is also a cofounder of the Nevada Desert Experience, a faith-based organization that has opposed nuclear weapons testing for a quarter of a century. He recently served six months in jail following his arrest at the Ft. Benning vigil in November 2005, and was ejected from congressional hearings in September after speaking out against the Military Commissions Act. Kelly is a member of the Redwood City Catholic Worker community and has served time in federal prison for the nonviolent direct disarmament of nuclear weapon delivery systems. In December 2005, Kelly served as chaplain for Witness to Torture, a delegation of over two dozen US anti-torture activists who defied the US embargo of Cuba with a peaceful march through that nation to the gates of the Guantánamo Bay naval base and prison camp.