Thank you to Fr. Louie Vitale, Fr. Steve Kelly, Mary Burton Riseley, Betsy Lamb, Fr. Jerry Zawada, Sr. Megan Rice and Dennis DuVall--and their attorneys and supporters--for putting torture on trial.

Vitale and Kelly were arrested in November 2006 at Ft. Huachuca, protesting military intelligence training there that fosters torture. Riseley, Lamb and Zawada continued the witness against torture and were arrested at Ft. Huachuca a year later, on November 18, 2007. Vitale was arrested at Ft. Huachuca again on November 16, 2008, along with Rice and DuVall.

On November 19, 2006, Jesuit Fr. Steve Kelly and Franciscan Fr. Louie Vitale walked into the Fort to speak with enlisted personnel and deliver a letter denouncing torture and the Military Commissions Act of 2006 to Major General Barbara Fast, then commander at the post and a key figure in the torture of detainees at Abu Ghraib Prison in Iraq. They were stopped as they approached the gatehouse, and arrested after kneeling in prayer. Both men later pled not guilty to charges of trespass and failure to comply with a police officer. After pretrial hearings, Federal Magistrate Hector Estrada granted the government's motion in limine forbidding the defendants and their attorney, Bill Quigley, from mentioning at trial anything about torture, international law and related topics. Because this gag order kept them from using their intended defense, on October 17, the date of their scheduled trial, the priests changed their plea to nolo contendere (no contest). They were sentenced to five months in prison, and released on March 14, 2008.

Franciscan Fr. Jerry Zawada, Betsy Lamb and Mary Burton Riseley went to Ft. Huachuca on November 18, 2007 to hand out flyers with a message they had written to enlisted personnel and officers, and speak to them about interrogation training and the use of torture. After moving past temporary barricades at the Fort's main gate, they were stopped from going any further. They knelt down and were arrested. In addition to the same charges of trespass and failure to comply with a police officer, the three were also charged with conspiracy to trespass.

At their December 4 arraignment in federal court, they pled not guilty. Lamb and Zawada were sent to prison due to failure to heed court orders in pending cases in other jurisdictions. At their December 6 detention hearing, they were denied bail and returned to prison until trial.

At their February 4 trial, Lamb, Riseley and Zawada were found guilty of trespass and failure to disobey an officer, after the prosecutor dropped the conspiracy charge in exchange for the defendants' stipulating to the facts related to their arrest. After speaking from the heart about the motivations for their actions during pre-sentencing statements, the three were sentenced by Judge Jacqueline Marshall to a $5000 fine or 500 hours of community service, plus two years of supervised probation. Lamb and Zawada were then released from custody.

On November 16, 2008, Fr. Louie Vitale returned to Ft. Huachuca. Vitale, Sr. Megan Rice and Dennis Duvall were arrested after going past the temporary barricades and police tape set up at the Fort's main gate. They were attempting to distribute flyers to base Commander Major General John Custer and his soldiers, opposing the cruel treatment and abuse of detainees from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. The three were given a letter barring them from the fort for a year, and released.

These actions were part of demonstrations at Ft. Huachuca that took place in conjunction with the annual vigil at Fort Benning, Georgia, calling for closure of the infamous School of the Americas (now called the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation). Dozens of Latin American military leaders who trained at the "School of Assassins" have since been convicted of torture, murder, and other heinous crimes in their own countries. The torture manuals used at the School of the Americas came from Ft. Huachuca. Ft. Huachuca is the home of the U.S. Army Intelligence Center and interrogation training school.