[NYTr] The Gulags at Home: Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin transferred to feds

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

The Final Call - Aug 19, 2007
http://www.finalcall.com/artman/publish/article_3837.shtml

Imam Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin transferred to feds

By Askia Muhammad
Senior Correspondent

WASHINGTON (FinalCall.com) - With legal charges still pending in
Georgia courts against the state prison system, and within days of the
national publication of a front page feature in The Final Call calling
for an end to his persecution, inmate Imam Jamil Al-Amin has been
transferred into federal custody, Georgia corrections officials
admitted Aug. 2.

Imam Al-Amin is now being held in the maximum high-security,
underground federal penitentiary in Colorado, known as “Super Max”
where infamous federal inmates including the so-called “Una-bomber,” is
held, and where organized crime boss John Gotti was held.

“...While people were outraged about Abu Ghraib, and rightfully should
have been outraged about it, there’s a problem here in this country
where these elite institutions, carry out outrageous acts,” Ed Brown,
the brother of Imam Al-Amin, told The Final Call. The conditions under
which the former civil rights leader known as H. Rap Brown are now held
inside the continental U.S., are just as unacceptable as the infamous
Iraqi prison where inmates were tortured and humiliated.

Imam Al-Amin may have figuratively gone from the prison “frying pan,
into the fire,” so to speak, his supporters insist. “The Super-Max
place in Colorado, that’s the Guantanamo Bay on the mainland,” Karimah
Al-Amin, wife of the Imam told The Final Call. “So, I don’t expect for
him to be able to attend Jumu’ah, and that’s one of the challenges
we’ve been waging, and naturally, he will not be in the general
population and that was the another challenge we were waging. So, I do
not see this as an improvement.”

In March 2002, Imam Al-Amin was convicted of murdering a Fulton County,
Georgia. Sheriff’s Deputy and wounding another in an incident March 16,
2000. Mr. Al-Amin steadfastly maintains his innocence. His supporters
insist that he was convicted because he’s a Muslim and because of his
militant past, his former association with the Black Panther Party, not
based on the evidence.

The imam was transferred to federal custody after state officials
decided his high profile status presented “unique issues” that the
prison system could no longer handle, said spokeswoman Yolanda Thompson
according to published reports.

“No specific incident served as a trigger,” said Ms. Thompson. “We
assess our inmate population daily, and we assess the needs of our
inmates. This is an ongoing case, involving the best interest of our
overall population. And he’s a very high-profile inmate.”

“By the feds moving him all the way out to Colorado to the Super-Max,
underground, he will absolutely no access to his attorneys,” said Mrs.
Al-Amin. “In addition to it being a burden on family, it will also be
on his attorneys. He has legal actions pending now. So, we’re very,
very concerned.

A number of legal challenges have been mounted by Imam Al-Amin’s legal
team, challenging not only his unjust incarceration, but the conditions
under which he is imprisoned. “He is still in 24-hour lock-down,” said
Mr. Brown. “That has been a major source of our concern.

“He has also been faced with a series of bogus charges claiming that he
had threatened someone there in the institution, which of course he has
not. It’s the kind of thing that can lead to an incident in which they
take provocative action, and they will have laid the ground-work by
basically coming up with all these bogus charges.

Another issue is, he can’t receive and does not receive his mail from
his attorneys or anyone else, including his wife, without prison
authorities—in violation of their own policy—interfering with the mail,
and opening it in his absence. “If they are fearful of contraband, they
are allowed to open it in his presence, but that has not been the
case,” said Mr. Brown.

“And there has been the issue in terms of both basic health and
sanitation in terms of feeding, which has been a major concern of ours.
They pass the food through the same slot they pass the mops for
clean-up,” he complained.

“They carry out outrageous acts. They have on occasion brought in
female corrections officers to do strip searches. That’s just uncalled
for, but they’ve done it nonetheless.”

A state prison spokesman said Imam Al-Amin was under lock-down because
of his security risk level, which is based on an inmate’s criminal
history and behavior in prison, and denied that Al-Amin would be
subjected to strip searches in front of female guards. His family and
supporters insist Imam Al Amin has been a model inmate.

Muslims inside the Georgia state prison at Reidsville, where he had
been held before the transfer, even petitioned authorities to permit
Imam Al-Amin to lead them during Jumu’ah (Friday congregational)
prayers.

“Georgia dropped him like a hot potato, and the feds, they have not
historically treated him fairly, so I really don’t expect any fair
treatment,” now said Mrs. Al-Amin.

                                ***

BACKGROUND ARTICLES:

The Final Call - Aug 14, 2007
http://www.finalcall.com/artman/publish/article_3814.shtml

‘What’s needed is more public awareness of the fact that he’s an
innocent man. He’s a political prisoner who is serving time for a crime
that he did not do. If he’s guilty, he’s guilty of fighting for the
rights of African Americans and, fighting for the rights of Muslims.
And trying to make America the democracy that it claims to be. Yeah,
he’s guilty of that.’ -Hodari Abdul-Ali Executive Director, The Imam
Jamil Action Network 


End the persecution of Imam Jamil Al-Amin

By Askia Muhammad
Senior Correspondent

WASHINGTON (FinalCall.com) - From his jail cell on K-Block in the state
prison at Reidsville, Ga., to his supporters all over the country—an
unambiguous demand is being sounded for prison authorities and for the
legal system itself, to end the unjust persecution of Imam Jamil
Al-Amin.

“My husband says he feels he has been sentenced two times. He has been
sentenced for a crime, number one, that he did not commit and that
someone has confessed to it, and confessed shortly after the incident.
And he’s been sentenced by the Department of Corrections,” Karimah
Al-Amin, wife of Imam Al-Amin, told The Final Call.

In March 2002, Imam Al-Amin was convicted of murdering a Fulton County,
Georgia Sheriff’s Deputy and wounding another in an incident March 16,
2000. Mr. Al-Amin steadfastly maintains his innocence. His supporters
insist that he was convicted not based on the evidence, but because he
is a Muslim, because of his militant past and his former association
with the Black Panther Party.

There is a consensus among Imam Al-Amin’s supporters that he was
convicted long before the jury announced its verdict and that
prosecutors intentionally ignored the truth in order to punish someone
with whom Atlanta authorities have had a long-running feud.

Law enforcement officials “know they’ve got the wrong people, but as
long as they can do it in the darkness, or as long as there’s no mass
protest, then they can just say, ‘Hey. We got another leader off the
streets. So what if he didn’t do it. We’ve been after him since the
’60s’ COINTELPRO,’” complained Hodari Abdul-Ali, executive director of
the Imam Jamil Action Network.

“What’s needed is more public awareness of the fact that he’s an
innocent man. He’s a political prisoner who is serving time for a crime
that he did not do. If he’s guilty, he’s guilty of fighting for the
rights of African Americans and, fighting for the rights of Muslims.
And trying to make America the democracy that it claims to be. Yeah,
he’s guilty of that,” said Mr. Abdul-Ali.

Imam Al-Amin’s second unjust sentence, his supporters insist, is his
treatment in the Georgia prison system where he has been on 23-hour
lock-down since 2002, despite many public complaints, even petitions
from among the Muslim population at Reidsville that he join them for
Jumu’ah prayers as their Imam.

He gets one hour out of the cell to shower and also to walk around,
what is considered a ‘Dog Pen’ for exercises, according to Mrs.
Al-Amin. Authorities even tried recently to humiliate him by passing
his meals to him through a slot on the floor, his supporters pointed
out. That practice was ended after many vocal complaints.

“The [Prison] Commissioner, when questioned on the phone [recently] by
[Imam Al-Amin’s] brother Ed Brown, said, ‘We’ll consider [modifying his
conditions] once the situation changes.’” said Sister Al-Amin. “He was
asked, ‘What is the situation?’ He could not come up with anything. He
doesn’t have any infractions against him. He would be considered a
model prisoner anywhere else.”

And there is the fundamental injustice of his conviction, insists Imam
Al-Amin’s wife. The Imam has been a target of government harassment
since the 1960s when he was the leader of the Student Non-violent
Coordinating Committee (SNCC). At that time he was known as H. Rap
Brown and was known for militant civil rights rhetoric.

The fiery civil rights leader was singled out individually, by name, as
a threat by FBI Counter Intelligence Program (COINTELPRO) agents.
“Spiro Agnew, who was then governor of Maryland said: ‘Throw Brown in
the jail and throw away the key,’” Nkechi Taifa, then Director of the
Equal Justice Program at Howard University School of Law told The Final
Call at the time of Imam Al-Amin’s trial in January 2002.

The facts in the case also strongly support Imam Al-Amin’s claims of
innocence.

There was testimony during the trial that within minutes of the
shootout March 16, 2000, in which deputy Ricky Kinchen died, a caller
to Atlanta’s 911 Emergency Telephone line reported seeing a bleeding
man a few blocks from the scene of the confrontation, begging motorists
for a ride. That fact is important because both Deputy Kinchen and his
partner, Aldranon English, claimed to have wounded their assailant.

There was also testimony of a trail of fresh blood leading from the
scene to an abandoned house, which was not investigated by the police,
according to Sister Al-Amin, and “the Imam’s fingerprints were not
found on any firearm associated with the crime,” she wrote in The
Weekly Mirror. When Imam Al-Amin was arrested three days after the
shooting in White Hall, Alabama, after a massive manhunt, authorities
were shocked that he had no injuries.

Prosecutors managed to stack the jury, said Mrs. Al-Amin, excluding
Muslims, Black women who might be old enough to recall COINTELPRO
involvement in civil rights and campus rights activities.

Another puzzling development is the recent appearance of an un-dated
and unsigned letter, purportedly written by a Mr. Otis Jackson who in
the typewritten letter identifies himself as Mr. Bey. In his confession
letter, Mr. Bey writes: “I pulled out and opened fire with my 9 mm hand
gun. I then went to my car and got my M-14 and fired off some rounds.
Deputy Kinchen shot me two times in the arm so I shot him. I shot
Deputy English as well. I remember standing over him and him telling me
about his family, but I was upset and hurt and I hate cops so I shot
him anyway.

“I got in my car, went to the home of [redacted] She along with
[redacted] removed the bullet. One went in and came out. The one that
was in there, they got it out. I went home, on the 17th or 18th I found
out that they were looking for Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin. So I called my
parole officer and told her what I had done,” the confession letter
continues. “I was sent back to Vegas. I had to beg the FBI to
investigate and I was told that I was not the one that they wanted. I
was told that I should be honored that I had gotten away with killing a
police.”

With such potentially convincing evidence available for his legal team,
why is he still behind bars?

“That’s what we’re dealing with right now,” said Sister Al-Amin. “We’ve
been in court in the county where he’s being held with a habeas corpus
(petition). We have two new attorneys, not the original trial
attorneys. We raised 14 grounds for reversal and for him to have a new
trial,” she continued.

The plight of Imam Jamil Al-Amin is not new in the persecution of
freedom fighters. We must not forget, and continue to organize and
mobilize our community to support, defend, and with God’s help, gain
the release of our Brother, another political prisoner, Mumia
Abu-Jamal, who has been on death row in a Philadelphia, Pa. prison for
the past 25 years.

Like the case of Imam Al-Amin, wicked forces do not desire to look at
the truth of the evidence in his case that would free him.

The Final Call will continue to monitor, investigate and report on the
legal proceedings of both cases involving Imam Jamil Al-Amin and Mumia
Abu-Jamal.

                             ***

The Final Call - Nov 20, 2001
http://www.finalcall.com/perspectives/mumia11-20-2001.htm

Perspectives:

Fight to free Jamil Al-Amin

by Mumia Abu-Jamal
Guest Columnist-

FROM A CELL IN WAYNESBURG, Pa.—The struggle for the freedom and liberty
of Atlanta Muslim leader Imam Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin must take place
now, before the cold fingers of the state can close around his neck.

Imam Jamil has already received what can only be called a biased and
prejudicial press, which has sought to depict him as a dangerous,
violent radical. In every substantive news report there has been
coverage of his brief membership in the Black Panther Party (BPP), but
there has been little reportage of his other associations, and much
less of his life as a Muslim imam working as an anti-drug activist, and
for the betterment of the entire community.

Imam Jamil’s political life didn’t begin with the Black Panther Party.
Indeed, accounts written by leading Panthers, like Huey P. Newton and
Elaine Brown, relate that Jamil, Kwame Ture (the late Stokely
Carmichael) and James Forman, were "drafted" into the BPP, a "drafting"
sabotaged by the F.B.I., and did not last longer than a few months.

Imam Jamil spent most of his political life as a field director and
activist of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC),
before his later religious conversion.

But if you are the media, which is more "juicy"—a 6-month-long
dalliance with the Black Panthers or a 6-year period with SNCC? Which
is more representative of his radical youth? Which is the longest?
Which is the most prejudicial?

Imam Jamil, in addition to being a spiritual leader, was a businessman
who owned a local store. This is hardly the profile projected by the
national press.

Arrested a year ago in connection with the shootings of two Atlanta
sheriff’s deputies, initial police reports strongly suggest the imam is
innocent of the charges. The surviving deputy told police investigators
that his assailant was shot; Al-Amin, upon his apprehension, was not
wounded.

Another police witness reported that the suspect had gray eyes.
Al-Amin’s eyes are a dark brown.

At the time of this writing, the jury is being selected in a murder
trial. (Editor’s Note: The trial has been delayed until early next
year.) This is especially troubling in light of the recent World Trade
Center plane bombings, as it has unleashed a national flurry of hatred
against many in the Islamic community. When fear and hatred enter the
mind, logic rarely lingers.

That said, Al-Amin’s freedom lies in people who express their support
now, instead of later. Fairness does not lie in reversing an unjust
conviction; rather it lies in preventing one in the first place.

Imam Jamil has lived a good and rich life in service to his spiritual
and ethnic community. He richly deserves the fullest support in all
efforts leading to his freedom, so that he may return to the community.
Free Imam Jamil!

(Mumia Abu-Jamal is the author of three books: "Live from Death Row,"
"Death Blossoms" and "All Things Censored." A new biography by Terry
Bisson, "On A Move: The Story of Mumia Abu-Jamal," is available at
www.MumiaBook.com.]

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