BBC

A US federal appeals court has ordered the immediate release of three anti-nuclear activists, including an elderly Catholic nun, the group’s lawyer says.

Attorney Bill Quigley says he hopes they will be released within days.

Last week, sabotage convictions against Sister Megan Rice, 85, Michael Walli, 66, and Greg Boertje-Obed, 59, for breaking into a Tennessee nuclear facility in 2012 were overturned.

But it upheld guilty verdicts for damaging government property.

Sister Megan was jailed for nearly three years for entering the Oak Ridge facility, which stores uranium.

The other two protesters were each sentenced to more than five years in prison.

The July 2012 incident prompted security changes at the Y-12 site. More…