Iraq Anti-war Heroes, Fairford Re-trials, Bristol Crown Court, 2007

south west | peace | announcement Saturday April 21, 2007 23:37 by Tony

Re-trial dates are set for the Fairford Five.

In the four years since their arrest in March 2003 the Fairford Five have endured several court hearings, and trials at Bristol Crown Court. At Bristol Crown Court the juries would convict none of them. So our Justice System in its wisdom has decided to commit these five people, who refused to believe Blair’s lies, whose motives were simply selfless and humanitarian, for re-trial.

Remember the massive demonstration on 15th February 2003, against the Iraq invasion? Seemed like the whole country was there and the streets of London were full to bursting with our great society in all its diversity, all railing against Tony Blair’s push for an invasion of Iraq. But Bush and Blair succeeded in peddling their lies round a pre-planned invasion and on 20th March 2003 our society lost the moral high ground. Our “Shock and Awe” campaign was a disgusting massacre of sanction weakened poor people by super-powers US-UK. For three weeks our B52 bombers dropped wave after wave of bombs on Baghdad. Bombs dropped from a height of 30,000 feet on defenceless victims – how very brave!! And what an indictment of our parliamentary system that Blair’s web of deceit met such little resistance from our elected representatives. A few principled men such as Dr David Kelly and Robin Cook stood strong, but many MPs kept their heads below the parapet and claimed, (and they still use this excuse, even now!), that they were taken in by Blair’s lies!

But those who marched in London saw through Blair’s lies, and five people physically tried to prevent this slaughter from happening. They were arrested at Fairford trying to delay the B52 bombers in the commission of war crimes, days before the invasion of Iraq.

In the four years since their arrest in March 2003 the Fairford Five have endured several court hearings, and trials at Bristol Crown Court. At Bristol Crown Court the juries would convict none of them. So our Justice System in its wisdom has decided to commit these five people, who refused to believe Blair’s lies, whose motives were simply selfless and humanitarian, for re-trial. The dates for their re-trials at Bristol Crown Court are as follows:-

Phil Pritchard and Toby Olditch on May 14th 2007.
Josh Richards on May 30th 2007.
Margaret Jones and Paul Milling on July 2nd 2007.

(Dates authenticated by Margaret Jones, one of the above defendants).

The last round of trials saw great support for the Fairford Five in the public gallery at Bristol Crown Court, Small Street, (not far from the famous “Nails”). We must do it again, please get there if you can!