Protesters denounce the war in court appearance

Lewis Randa, director of Sherborn's Peace Abbey, puts bands with names of soldiers killed in Iraq on crosses in front of District Court in Natick before making a court appearance with four others who were arrested during a recent war protest in Sherborn.
(Globe Staff Photo by Joanne Rathe)

REGION

One by one, in a packed but hushed courtroom, five protesters denounced the war in Iraq yesterday, as they accepted their punishment for blocking traffic in Sherborn in an act of civil disobedience.

In one of five statements read politely at Natick District Court, Lewis Randa, 59, of Sherborn called the war "illegal and immoral" as he addressed Judge Sarah Singer.

Sarah Fuhro, 65, of Natick, the mother of an Army Reserve soldier who recently returned from Iraq, pleaded "to stop the killing and maiming of our soldiers and the Iraqi people."

Louise Coleman, 62, of Sherborn, said, "I have to do whatever I can to stop this out-of-control, insane war."

After all defendants pleaded no contest to charges of disturbing the peace, Sherborn police Sergeant Michael McLaughlin, the town's police prosecutor, clapped Randa on the shoulder and wished him well, the Globe reports today.

-- Brian McQuarrie