French Nuclear Unit Deserter Sentenced to 6-Month Term
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NIMES, France — An officer who deserted from France’s strategic nuclear missile base because he could no longer bear the thought that he might have to fire the weapons was sentenced to six months in jail Monday.
Judicial sources said five months of the sentence were suspended, and the former air force lieutenant, Jean-Louis Cahu, 25, was released because he had already spent more than a month in detention.
He has been discharged from the armed forces and now campaigns against nuclear weapons.
Cahu had been in charge of one of two keys to the firing system of 18 S-3 ballistic missiles based in the Albion Plateau in southeast France when he disappeared last November. He surrendered to police two weeks later.
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