Nevada Desert Experience
Wednesday, April 4, 2012
Contact: Jim Haber, 702-646-4814 (office), 415-828-2506 (mobile)
(See next News Release)

Standing Their Ground against Murder:

Commander Col. James Hecker and the USAF 432nd
and the 432nd Expeditionary Wing
at Creech Air Force Base have been served an indictment.

At approximately 7:45 AM, Fr. Louie Vitale, Dennis DuVall, Felicia Parazaider and Robert Majors were arrested at Creech Air Force Base, Indian Springs, Nevada when attempting to fulfill their legal obligations as United States citizens by serving an “Indictment for the Violation of Human Rights,” charging Col. James Hecker and the 432d and 432d Expeditionary Wing with extrajudicial killings, violation of due process, wars of aggression,” for the killings of innocent civilians by the use of drones controlled by Creech Air Force drone crews. Las Vegas Metro Police was handed the indictment by the group and informed the Nevada Desert Experience that the indictment would be delivered. Fr. Vitale and along with Felicia Parazaider gave copies of the indictment to Las Vegas Police. The indictment was then received by Creech base security personnel to pass up the chain of command.

The full indictment follows:

Indictment for Violations of Human Rights
Col . James Hecker
Creech Air Force Base
Indian Springs, Nevada
April 4, 2012

We charge the chain of command from President Barack Obama, to Secretary of Defense Leon E. Panetta, to Colonel James Hecker, to every drone crew:

With the following crimes: extrajudicial killings, violation of due process, wars of aggression, violation of national sovereignty, and the killing of innocent civilians.
We charge that these crimes are committed in violation of the Constitution of the United States of America, Article I, Section 6.11, the Charter of the United Nations, Article 2, Section 4, the Golden Rule and International Law, to which we are especially bound by Article 6 section 2 of the Constitution which states:

“…all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and Judges in every state shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.”

We demand they immediately stop these crimes.
And be accountable to the people of the United States and Afghanistan.
We appeal to all citizens of the United States, military and civilian, and to all public officials, that we are required by the Nuremburg Principles I - VI and by Conscience to refuse to participate in these crimes, to denounce them and to resist them nonviolently.

Indictment
We charge the USAF, headquartered at Creech Air Force Base, home of the 432d and the 432d Expeditionary Wing, under the command of Commander Col. James Hecker, with the piloting of the MQ-1B Predator and MQ-9 Reaper and RQ-170 Sentinel Drones in combat missions in Iraq and Afghanistan and the subsequent deaths of numerous citizens and noncombatants in the above mentioned sovereign nations.

Extrajudicial targeted killings by the use of unmanned aircraft drones by the United States of America are intentional, premeditated and deliberate use of lethal force in violation of the US and international human rights law.

The US has used drones for targeted killing in Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen and Pakistan with no legal basis for defining the scope of the area where drones can and cannot be used, no rigorous criteria for deciding which people will be targeted for killing, no procedural safeguards to ensure the legality and accuracy of the killings, and no mechanisms of accountability.

In support of this indictment we cite the United Nations Special Rapporteur on extra-judicial, summary, or arbitrary executions, who has said that the use of drones is
“…a highly probable blurring and expansion of the boundaries of the applicable legal frameworks – human rights law, the laws of war, and the law applicable to the use of inter-state force…The result has been the displacement of clear legal standards with a vaguely defined license to kill, and the creation of a major accountability vacuum…. In terms of the legal framework, many of these practices violate straightforward legal rules..”

See United Nations General Assembly Human Rights Council Study on Targeted Killings, 28 May 2010. http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/hrcouncil/docs/14session/A.HRC.14.24.Add6.pdf
Let all accused in this indictment understand that our words are spoken nonviolently. All are invited to stop the use of drones and refuse to participate in illegal warfare.

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