BERRIGAN TRIAL

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 32879, 30 March 1972, Page 11

BERRIGAN TRIAL

(N.Z P.A.-Reuter—Copyright) HARRISBURG

(Pennsylvania) Mar. 9. Seminarians and theology students planned to surround the federal courthouse in Harrisburg today in a demonstration of support for the Rev. Philip Berrigan and six co-accused in the Harrisburg Seven conspiracy trial. Organisers for the demonstrators said that they would lock arms to form what they termed a “well of conscience” around the courthouse starting early in the morning. The prosecution rested its case yesterday and two defence counsel followed with their closing statements. Wrapping up the case for the Government, Mr William Connally reread to the jury sets of letters allegedly exchanged between Father Berrigan and another accused, Sister Elizabeth Mac Allister, while the priest was imprisoned in the federal penitentiary at Lewisburg. It is these letters, according to the prosecution, which set forth the accused’s purported conspiracy to kidnap the White House aide. Dr Henry Kissinger, blow up heating tunnels in Washington, D.C., and raid draft boards in several cities. The defence counsel, Mr Paul O’Dwyer reread to the jury the two letters between Father Berrigan and Sister Elizabeth in which they allegedly discussed the kidnapping of Kissinger. He stressed that the purported plot never got beyond the letter-writing stage. "There it was born, and there it died,” he said.