03/08/2005 — A judge in
Alaska has overturned a jury verdict and acquitted
Greenpeace of failing to register oil spill
contingency plans. District Court Judge Kevin
Miller declared the evidence did not support
the guilty verdicts.
"The decision to remove these verdicts
from the province of the jury is one that
this court does not take lightly," said
Miller, who presided over the jury trial.
If ever there was a trumped-up charge, this
was it. The case stemmed from a voyage the
Arctic Sunrise made into Alaskan waters in
2004 to protest irresponsible forestry practices.
The Arctic Sunrise had, and still has, all
of the international environmental standards
certificates required.
Stichting Marine Services (SMS) – the operator
of the Arctic Sunrise – made a clerical error
in not getting state confirmation of an oil
spill contingency plan. A representative of
SMS admitted the error, corrected it, and
made it clear SMS were ready to accept the
consequences. However, apparently because
the ship's operator didn't provide a juicy
political target, the responsible party was
never prosecuted in favour of a target the
state prosecutor liked better: Greenpeace
USA.
The fact that three defendants who didn't
own or operate the Arctic Sunrise were forced
to stand trial demonstrated just how politically
motivated the charges and the case were. Greenpeace
USA was working to save the Tongass forest
against powerful political and commercial
interests. And for that, the authorities wanted
Greenpeace to bear the full brunt of the law.
Any law. Even if the State had to stretch
to make it stick.
The decision was the equivalent of fining
someone US$ 200,000 for forgetting to have
their driver's license in their pocket, when
the person they charged wasn't even driving
or in fact required to have a driver's license.
Authorities who didn't want their poor environmental
record exposed became hell-bent on punishing
us for highlighting environmental destruction.
It's become a chillingly familiar pattern.
Last year, US Attorney General Ashcroft took
Greenpeace to court under a century-old law
governing "sailor mongering" (prostitution)
in an unprecedented legal harassment of a
public-interest organisation for the peaceful
actions of its supporters. In that case, we
were exposing a shipment of Brazilian mahogany
into Miami which was illegal under US law.
The destroyers of the Amazon went free, while
the Bush Administration put Greenpeace on
trial.
And in the news currently are revelations
that the FBI has been using anti-terrorism
funds and powers to spy on critics of the
Bush Administration like Greenpeace, the American
Civil Liberties Union, and a raft of other
public-interest groups.
Reacting to the Alaskan judge's decision
to throw out the charges against Greenpeace,
assistant attorney general James Fayette told
the Anchorage Daily News: "I've been
a prosecutor in Anchorage for 12 years and
I've never seen this. ... I've never heard
of it happening."
It's called justice, Mr. Fayette.
— Brian Thomas Fitzgerald
