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THREE peace activists were declared not guilty last week of causing E80,000 worth of damage at a Trident nuclear submarine base after Sheriff Margaret Gimblett ordered a jury to acquit them because the weapons programme is iilegal under international law and so they had committed no crime.
The sheriff ruled that the women had a right to try to disarm the base at Faslane in Argyll.
There were cheers from supporters as Angela Zelter of Cromer in Norfolk, Ellen Moxley of Dollar, Clackmannanshire and Bodil Ulla Roder from Denmark walked free from the court in Greenock after a 17-day trial.
The defence had cited a ruling by the International Court of Justice in 1996 which declared the use or threat of nuclear weapons illegal.
Tory critics were furious at the ruling and demanded that the sheriff be sacked. Scottish Tory home affairs spokesperson Phil Gallie warned that the ruling would send all the wrong signals to "pacifist loonies".
Sheriff Gimblett said: "The three took the view that, it was illegal and given the horrendous nature of nuclear weapons, they had an obligation in terms of international law to do whatever they could to stop the deployment and use of nuclear weapons in situations construed as a threat.
"I have heard nothing which would make it seem to me that the accused acted with criminal intent" she concluded.
The three were accused of boarding the Maytime floating laboratory armed with saws, glass cutters and drills. They allegedly damaged equipment including fax machines, telephones and tools and throwing documents= overboard.
They were also accused of damaging windows, cutting a hole in a fence, destroying electrical cables and disabling a crane by pouring glue over its controls.
They are members of the anti-nuclear group Trident Ploughshares 2000.
* A Minister in the Scottish Executive has admitted publicly to being in favour of scrapping Trident.
After the ruling by Sheriff Gimblett, the opposition Scottish National Party asked if ministerial collective responsibility in Scotland applied to reserved as well as devolved areas.
Ms Jackie Baillie, deputy Minister for Communities had already replied to a CND questionnaire posted on the internet before the Scottish Parliament elections, saying she supported the scrapping of Trident.
This led the SNP to accuse the Labour administration of being split on the matter.