Australia activists avoid jail for spy base raid

CANBERRA June 15 (Reuters) Four Australian peace activists who illegally entered the country's most sensitive spy satellite base to protest against the Iraq war avoided jail today after the judge decided a prison term would be too severe.

The four broke into the joint US-Australia base at Pine Gap, near the outback city of Alice Springs, in December 2005 to conduct a citizen's inspection and ''disrupt the machinery of war'', cutting through the fence with bolt-cutters.

The CIA-operated base collects signals intelligence and detects ballistic missile launches over much of Asia and the West Asia. The activists were protesting against its alleged use for operations in Iraq, where Australia is a close US ally.

''We are basically celebrating. We were facing seven years in prison and we all had our bags packed,'' activist Donna Mulhearn told Reuters. All four belonged to a group called Christians Against All Terrorism and defended themselves.

Australian Attorney-General Philip Ruddock charged the group under an untested 1952 law barring trespass in a prohibited area and taking photographs of a defence site. They had faced seven years in jail and 46,000 dollars fines.

Prosecutors said the four had reached sensitive technical areas of the base in offences ''striking at the heart of the national security and the national interest''.

Judge Sally Thomas fined the four -- Jim Dowling, Bryan Law, Mulhearn and Adele Goldie -- between (375 dollars) and A50, as well as billing them a total of A 2,500 dollar for fence repairs.

''All four were very genuine in the cause they sought to espouse,'' said Judge Thomas. ''However their actions, no matter for what cause, cannot justify the breaking of the law.'' Law said the four felt they had won, despite guilty verdicts.

''It's not about trespass, it's a moral issue,'' Law said.

Reuters JT RS1127