THE SIX Derry men accused of damaging the Raytheon plant were yesterday acquitted of affray.
Belfast Crown Court Judge Tom Burgess directed the jury to find the six, including journalist and author Eamonn McCann, not guilty of causing an affray on August 9th, 2006.
The other five are James Kelly, (47) of Rathkeele Way, Eamon O’Donnell (53) of Campion Court, Colm Bryce (42) of Westland Avenue, Seán Heaton (35) of Circular Road and Kieran Gallagher (42) of Craft Village, all Derry.
The judge also directed the jury to acquit Mr Gallagher on a charge of theft of two CDs from the Raytheon offices. Due to legal matters in the case, the trial has now been adjourned until a date to be fixed with Judge Burgess telling the jury “I will ring you” as soon as possible.
Over the last three weeks, the jury heard that the six men caused almost £100,000 worth of damage to Raytheon’s server and computer equipment at the Branch Road plant outside Derry.
The jury also heard the protest was over the fact that Raytheon is a worldwide, multinational, multi-million weapons systems development and missile manufacturer, supplying various systems and missiles to the Israeli forces, which at that time, was bombing parts of Lebanon in response to an attack on their soldiers.
Giving evidence, McCann said that those who took part were well aware of what was to happen but maintained that what occurred, was a “peaceful protest”.
McCann claimed at the time that what was happening in Lebanon, in particular the bombing of an apartment block by Israeli defence forces “heightened our concerns, and focused our indignation” about Raytheon supplying the weapons used.
The weapons, he said, were killing a substantial number of innocent civilians, many of them women and children and TV and photographic coverage of the scenes, “looked like something out of the second World War”.
Asked by his defence QC Michael Topolski why it was necessary to use force during the protest, the author claimed it was not only necessary to use “a degree of force” to get into Raytheon, but it was also “necessary to use force in order to disable or decommission, the phrase we used at the time, the equipment that was there”.
During cross-examination from prosecution QC Paul Ramsey, it was put to McCann that he knew “full well what you were going to do was not to help people in the Lebanon, but it was a publicity stunt while wanting to get even with Raytheon”.
“It most certainly was not a publicity stunt,” said the journalist.
