LOUISE NOUSRATPOUR looks at why the United States wants to kill Mumia Abu-Jamal.
Monday October 30, 2006
The Morning Star
BY the age of 15, Mumia Abu-Jamal had a 600-page FBI file under his name and was on the US National Security Index as a dangerous subversive to be interned in a national emergency.
"When he was arrested, Mumia was a journalist who was already known as 'the voice of the voiceless'," says Mumia's lawyer Robert R Bryan on a visit to London to mobilise public support for an forthcoming court review case.
"Many people are drawn to this case, not because they think Mumia is innocent, but because they are against capital punishment or they just don't know what happened and feel a fair trial is needed to allow Mumia to tell his side of the story."
The case has returned to the spotlight, "because, for the first time, there is a real chance that Mumia is granted a retrial," Bryan says.
On December 9 1981, Mumia went to save his brother from an apparently senseless beating that he was receiving at the hands of Philadelphia police. Shots were fired, Mumia was critically wounded and officer Daniel Faulkner was left dead.
Forensic evidence proved that Faulkner had shot Mumia, but no proof has ever been produced indicating that Mumia had killed Faulkner. In fact, much of the evidence prove otherwise and at least four witness accounts point to a gunman fleeing the scene before more police arrived.
Bryan explains that the initial trial in 1982 and the post-conviction proceedings were a "travesty of justice," peppered with false statements from coerced witnesses, faulty ballistics, court bias and racism. Mumia was denied his constitutional right to self-representation and the jury was systematically purged of qualified African-Americans.
Having specialised in death penalty litigation for three decades, Bryan quickly turned Mumia's case around when he took over in 2003. His submissions to the US Court of Appeal, which is directly below the Supreme Court, persuaded judges in December 2005 to grant a review of key issues, which could lead to a fresh trial early next year.
"Issues up for review include racism in jury selection, the bias of trial judge Albert Sabo and prejudice arguments by the prosecutors turned the presumption of innocence on its head," Bryan explains.
Sabo, who has put more people on death row than any other judge in the US, was overheard by a court stenographer during a trial recess to have said that he was going to help the prosecution "fry the nigger."
Bryan says wryly: "If the state wants someone dead, it will appoint the right judge. In Mumia's case, Sabo was the perfect candidate." The veteran anti-death penalty campaigner insists that Mumia "has become a pin-up for the international campaign against capital punishment because everything that could go wrong in a capital case - court bias, lack of funds for the defence, incompetent lawyers - has."
Bryan dismisses the court's heroic portrayal of Faulkner as "nonsense," pointing out that "Faulkner, like many officers in Philadelphia, was profoundly racist and had a reputation in the black community.
"For nearly 25 years," says the lawyer, "Mumia has endured unjust treatment while living in a small, dank cell, where he can hardly move around. But, despite this miserable existence and government attempts to silence him, Mumia continues to speak out."
The prisoner has written a series of human rights-related books and articles from Pennsylvania's death row. He acts as a lawyer for inmates who cannot afford legal representation and has a weekly radio broadcast, Dispatches From Death Row.
"I have never seen the authorities wanting someone dead so zealously," comments Bryan.
"They thought that, by putting Mumia on death row, they could shut him up. But he has become an international figure and his voice against injustice and oppression has grown stronger," he says, warning: "The government now knows that the only way to silence his pen and his voice is to strap him down and take the very life out of him."
Mumia's unflinching stand has brought him enduring support from justice campaigners and high-profile figures like Angela Davis and Nelson Mandela. Many cities across the globe, including Paris, have made him their honorary citizen.
The US authorities have not yet dared to kill Mumia. The court once set a date for his execution - August 17 1995 - but overwhelming global protests forced the judge to retreat.
But, warns Bryan, "he is dead without public backing. We will fight his legal case in court, but worldwide support will make all the difference."
A petition initiated by Ian MacDonald QC and British-based Legal Action for Women (LAW) calling for a retrial has won the backing of over 150 British lawyers.
"This is the kind of action that makes an enormous difference," Bryan says.
"Mumia is a symbol for all political prisoners and those on death row. If he risks death to stand up for our values, the least we can do is speak out for him."
Over 350 prisoners have been executed in the US since 1990 and a further 3,300 are currently on death row, most of them African-Americans.
But the authorities have failed to dispirit Mumia, whose refusal to "muffle his dissent" could cost him his life, Bryan says, in the McCarthyite post-September 11 2001 US.
At the Free Mumia conference in London on October 20, LAW co-ordinator Niki Adams called for vigilance, warning: "We know what goes on in the US could soon be exported here."
Bryan is positive about Mumia's case but also aware of the obsticles on the way.
"I'm confident that, if we are granted a new and fair trial, Mumia will walk free. But the legal system in the US, as everywhere, is arbitrary, it makes mistakes and, in this case, my client could end up dead," he sighs.
"So, I'm frightened and Mumia, although he always sees a light at the end of the tunnel, knows that there is a gallows at the end of that tunnel.
"If we can win this case and free him, the good work he has done from that small, miserable cell on death row, he could do much better as a free man."
