Nun, 82, ‘shut down NUCLEAR facility after breaking in and splattering uranium complex with blood’
- Megan Rice, 82, was one of three to allegedly break into heavily guarded nuclear facility in Tennessee
- Y-12 complex in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, holds nation’s only facility for weapons-grade uranium
- Rice and two men said to be activists against nuclear use; spokesperson for organisation said they spilled blood on uranium before their arrests
- Facility shut down until at least next week
By BETH STEBNER and REUTERS REPORTER
PUBLISHED: 05:12 GMT, 3 August 2012 | UPDATED: 07:14 GMT, 3 August 2012
Arrested: Megan Rice, an 82-year-old nun, was one of three who allegedly broke into a nuclear facility
Two men and an 82-year-old nun allegedly broke into the U.S. government’s only facility for handling, processing and storing weapons-grade uranium, government officials said Thursday.
The Oak Ridge, Tennessee facility has been temporarily shut after the security breach, and now 82-year-old Sister Megan Rice, Michael Walli, 63, and Greg Boertje-Obed, 57, face criminal charges of trespassing.
Officials said the facility was shut down on Wednesday at least until next week after the three activists cut through perimeter fences to reach the outer wall of a building where highly enriched uranium, a key nuclear bomb component, is stored.
The activists painted slogans and threw what they said was human blood on the wall of the facility before they were arrested shortly before 4.30am last Saturday.
The numerous buildings in the facility are known by the code name Y-12, that it was given during World War II, Reuters reported.
While moving between the perimeter fences, the activists triggered sensors that alerted security personnel. But officials conceded the intruders were still able to reach the building’s walls before security personnel got to them.
Ellen Barfield, a spokeswoman for the activists who called themselves ‘Transform Now Plowshares,’ said three were arrested and charged with vandalism and criminal trespass.
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Partners in crime: Greg Boertje-Obed, left, and Michael R. Walli, right, are also activists for Transform Now Plowshares and were arrested after trespassing at the Y-12 facility in Tennessee
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