Franciscan, Jesuit priests face jail terms for anti-torture protest outside military base [View All]

[Ian David]

Free while awaiting trial
Franciscan, Jesuit priests face jail terms for anti-torture protest outside military base

Two California priests are awaiting a June 4 trial in federal court on charges of trespass and refusing to follow police orders during a protest outside an Arizona military base.

Federal prosecutors at an arraignment in Tucson on April 3 asked that the two priests be jailed. The two, said the prosecutors, had a history of arrests and might break the law again before their trial. But U.S. Magistrate Hector Estrada allowed the priests to remain free on their own recognizance after learning from prosecutors that the clerics’ past crimes were nonviolent.

One of the priests, Franciscan Father Louis Vitale, 74, is the former pastor of St. Boniface church in San Francisco, a co-founder of the Oakland-based non-violence group, Pace e Bene, as well as of the Nevada Desert Experience, which opposes nuclear weapons testing. The other was Jesuit Father Steve Kelly, 58, a member of the Redwood Catholic Worker. Both were arrested at Ft. Huachuca, near Sierra Vista, Arizona, on Nov. 19, 2006. They were protesting the alleged teaching of torture methods at the base.

Vitale and Kelly were among 120 protesters at Ft. Huachuca. They claim U.S. military intelligence teaches torture interrogation techniques at Ft. Huachuca -- the same techniques used at Abu Ghraib and, allegedly, at Guantanamo.

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