By Bill Quigley

10/18/07 Louis Vitale, 75, a Franciscan priest, and Steve
Kelly, 58, a Jesuit priest, were each sentenced to five months in federal
prison for attempting to deliver a letter opposing the teaching of torture
at Fort Huachuca in Arizona. Both priests were taken directly into jail
from the courtroom after sentencing.

Fort Huachuca is the headquarters of military intelligence in the U.S. and
the place where military and civilian interrogators are taught how to
extract information from prisoners. The priests attempted to deliver their
letter to Major General Barbara Fast, commander of Fort Huachuca. Fast was
previously the head of all military intelligence in Iraq during the
atrocities of Abu Ghraib.

The priests were arrested while kneeling in prayer halfway up the driveway
to Fort Huachuca in November 2006. Both priests were charged with trespass
on a military base and resisting orders of an officer to stop.

In a pre-trial heating, the priests attempted to introduce evidence of
torture, murder, and gross violations of human rights in Afghanistan, Abu
Ghraib in Iraq, and at Guantanamo. The priests offered investigative
reports from the FBI, the US Army, Amnesty International, Human Rights
Watch, and Physicians for Social Responsibility documenting hundreds of
incidents of human rights violations. Despite increasing evidence of the
use of torture by U.S. forces sanctioned by President Bush and others, the
federal court in Tucson refused to allow any evidence of torture, the
legality of the invasion of Iraq, or international law to be a part of the
trial.

Outside the courthouse, before the judge ordered them to prison, the
priests explained their actions. The real crime here has always been the
teaching of torture at Fort Huachuca and the practice of torture around the
world. We tried to deliver a letter asking that the teaching of torture be
stopped and were arrested. We tried to put the evidence of torture on full
and honest display in the courthouse and were denied. We were prepared to
put on evidence about the widespread use of torture and human rights abuses
committed during interrogations at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo in Iraq and
Afhganistan. This evidence was gathered by the military itself and by
governmental and human rights investigations.

Fr. Vitale, a longtime justice and peace activist in San Francisco and
Nevada, said: Because the court will not allow the truth of torture to
be a part of our trial, we plead no contest. We are uninterested in a court
hearing limited to who was walking where and how many steps it was to the
gate. History will judge whether silencing the facts of torture is just or
not. Far too many people have died because of our national silence about
torture. Far too many of our young people in the military have been
permanently damaged after following orders to torture and violate the human
rights of other humans.

Fr. Kelly, who walked to the gates of Guantanamo with the Catholic Worker
group in December of 2005, concluded: We will keep trying to stop the
teaching and practice of torture whether we are sent to jail or out. We
have done our part for now. Now it is up to every woman and man of
conscience to do their part to stop the injustice of torture.

The priests were prompted to protest by continuing revelations about the
practice of torture by U.S. military and intelligence officers. The priests
were also deeply concerned after learning of the suicide in Iraq of a
young, devout female military interrogator in Iraq, Alyssa Peterson of
Arizona, shortly after arriving in Iraq. Peterson was reported to be
horrified by the mistreatment of Iraqi prisoners.

Investigation also revealed that Fort Huachuca was the source of infamous
torture manuals distributed to hundreds of Latin American graduates
of the U.S. Army School of Americas at Fort Benning, GA. Demonstrations
against the teaching of torture at Fort Huachuca have been occurring for
the past several years each November and are scheduled again for November
16 and 17 this year.

Bill Quigley is a human rights lawyer and professor at Loyola University
New Orleans. Bill can be reached at Quigley@loyno.edu .