US embassy cable - 04DUBLIN1635

UNCLAS DUBLIN 001635 
 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PREL, PGOV, MARR, FAB5 
SUBJECT: MARY KELLY CONVICTED FOR DAMAGING U.S. MILITARY 
AIRCRAFT 
 
 
1.  On October 28, anti-war activist Mary Kelly was convicted 
by a jury at Ennis Circuit Court of criminal damage without 
lawful excuse of a 737 U.S. navy plane at Shannon Airport on 
January 29, 2003.  The jury found Kelly guilty of causing 
damage of USD 1.5 million after she took an axe to the 
aircraft, which had landed at the airport en route from Fort 
Worth, Texas, to a military logistics base in Italy.  The 
conviction comes after a jury had failed to reach a verdict 
in the case in June 2003, the first time that Kelly had been 
tried for the offense. 
 
2.  In contrast to the first trial, Judge Carroll Moran did 
not permit Kelly in this six-day hearing to make a political 
argument in her defense.  Representing herself, Kelly had 
argued that she had lawful excuse to damage the aircraft as 
she was trying to save life in Iraq.  In comments to the 
jury, Judge Moran said that the defense of lawful excuse did 
not apply in this case, since there was "no connection in 
time or space between the act carried out by Kelly and the 
person or property she was claiming to protect."  Moran also 
refused expert witness accounts on Kelly's behalf by former 
assistant UN Secretary General Denis Haliday and professor of 
international law, Curtis Doebbler.  The judge explained that 
this was not a case to "consider the legality of the war in 
Iraq" and that Kelly's act was "simple vigilantism." 
 
3.  The sentencing was adjourned until November 5 to allow 
Kelly to consult attorneys to consider a plea for sentence 
mitigation.  The maximum sentence for the offense is ten 
years in prison, though attorneys with whom Post has 
discussed the case doubt that the final sentence will be that 
severe.  Any appeal would involve an application to the Court 
of Criminal Appeal, a process that could take between six and 
twelve months. 
BENTON