Court Rules Damage Was Act Of Protest

This is a verdict guaranteed to raise eyebrows at the Pentagon and the State Department. A court in Dublin, Ireland, Tuesday found five people accused of damaging a US Navy transport jet at Shannon Airport... not guilty.

The five were arrested in February 2003, after they used axes and hammers to beat up the Boeing 737... which was being repared after a similar attack. All told... the jet suffered more than $2 million in damage.

Why did they do it? Dierdre Clancy, Karen Fallon, Nuin Dunlop, Damien Moran and Ciaron O'Reilly say they were protesting America's war in Iraq... and the use of Irish facilities to service a combatant's aircraft.

"Every life without exception has something sacred in it. That means every life in Iraq," said Dunlop, an American citizen living in Dublin. "If people knew this to be true, there would be no war."

Karen Fallon says this is a matter of standing up for Ireland's policy of remaining neutral in the Iraq conflict.

"The Irish people in the majority today approved that the Irish state is actually going against its people and breaking neutrality," she told the Associated Press. 

So far, there's been no official reaction from the US... although a spokesman for the embassy in Dublin says there will be talks between the American and Irish governments.

FMI: www.irelandemb.org