Federal officials prevailed in Jefferson City Monday when two anti-war protesters were convicted for trespassing last spring at Whiteman Air Force Base.
The conviction came despite the activists' best efforts to elevate the case into a public debate over the morality of unmanned military drones.
At a bench trial before U.S. District Judge Matt Whitworth, two defendants - Ron Faust, a retired Disciples of Christ minister from Gladstone, and Brian Terrell, a member of the Catholic Worker Movement from Iowa - argued unsuccessfully they had a right deliver a petition to the base's commander, Brig. Gen. Scott A. Vander Hamm.
Faust and Terrell were arrested April 15.
A third protester, Mark Kenney of Omaha, pleaded guilty June 6, and is serving a four-month term in federal prison.