A KNIGHTON woman is one of two Trident Ploughshares campaigners who, after taking part in a blockade of the nuclear warhead store in Scotland, have been remanded in custody after refusing to accept special bail conditions imposed by a Justice of the Peace at a hearing in Dumbarton Sheriff Court.
Angie Zelter, 66, was one of five Trident Ploughshares protesters who on Tuesday blockaded a roadway into the Coulport base near Loch Long by lying down joined to each other with “lock-on” tubes. They appeared at Dumbarton Sheriff Court. While three of the group accepted a special bail condition requiring them to stay away from the Faslane and Coulport Trident bases, both Angie and Brian Quail, 79, refused to do so.
The Procurator Fiscal asked the Justice of the Peace to adhere to the special bail condition, citing the potential impact on the public. Ms Zelter argued that she had no intention of lying in the roadway again but had every right to continue protesting at the bases.
She told the court that she had not had a conviction in the last 10 years and that she had reported the UK government to the police for the crime of deploying a weapon of mass destruction, as well as the Prime Minister for her Commons admission that she would order the firing of a weapon of mass murder.
The Justice of the Peace accepted the Crown’s argument about the impact on the public and remanded both defendants in custody until their trial on August 3 on a charge of breach of the peace. Ms Zelter has been sent to HMP Cornton Vale in Stirling where she was imprisoned on two previous occasions.
A Trident Ploughshares spokesperson said: “Scottish courts should not be jailing people for protesting peacefully against the active deployment of a hideous weapon system that clearly breaches the Geneva Convention, which no less than 122 countries worldwide want to prohibit and eliminate.”
The week of Trident Ploughshares disruptive action against the nuclear weapon bases ended on Sunday.