RAF Hawk aircraft. Jez/Flickr. Some rights reserved.20 years ago this week an action by three women to damage a Hawk jet soon to be exported from Britain to Indonesia was successful. On 29 January 1996, Joanna Wilson, Lotta Kronlid, and Andrea Needham were arrested and charged with causing over a million pounds' worth of damage, while Angie Zelter was charged shortly afterwards with conspiracy. All four were in prison for six months pending the seven-day trial which took place at Liverpool crown court in July 1996.
The defence case was that the women were preventing a greater crime – the use of the jet by the Indonesian military against people in East Timor, who had been engaged in a struggle against cruel occupation and for national independence since 1975. The outcome was one of the most remarkable verdicts in recent legal history: not guilty.
At the time, that judgment was typically described as “perverse”. But it stood, and the four women were released. Now, two decades later, a remarkable account has been published by Peace News of the series of events that led to the trial as well as of the women's week in the dock.
