Nobel peace laureate attacks Government over Shannon

One of Ireland's Nobel Peace Prize-winners has said the Government should be on trial over its role in the Iraq war, rather than the five activists currently on trial for damaging a US plane at Shannon.

Mairead Corrigan Maguire (below), awarded the 1976 Nobel Peace Prize for her work in setting up the Peace People in Belfast, said: "The Government's collaboration by granting of landing rights at Shannon, I believe, amounts to 'aiding and abetting' criminality [and] murder, and is itself a crime."

"Surely it is not the Pitstop five, but the Irish President, as head of the Armed Forces and State, and the Irish Government, who should be called to account by the Irish people for facilitating this barbaric invasion of Iraq by allowing the militarisation of Shannon and putting in jeopardy Irish citizens' safety and Irish neutrality," she said.

"We have all responsibility as citizens, the Pitstop five were trying to do what our Courts and Government are supposed to do, prevent further crimes against Iraqi people."

The five, calling themselves the Pitstop Ploughshares, are charged with causing $2.6 million of damage to a US navy plane at Shannon Airport in February 2003. They could face up to ten years in prison. The trial opened in Dublin on 24 October.

William hederman