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Date: Sat, 01 Jun 2002 13:32:25 -0700
From: radtimes <resist@best.com>
Subject: Black Panther Parole Hearing / Cointelpro
This article is from The Oread Daily.
May 28, 2002 redpoet@swbell.net Volume 2002.92
The Oread Daily is a Peoples^ Paper and is Responsible Only to the
People
FREE JALIL MUNTIQIM
In July, the New York State Board of Parole will consider the case of
former Black Panther Jalil Muntiqim (Anthony Bottom), one of the longest
incarcerated political prisoners in the United States. Jalil has been
locked away for more than three decades. Jalil along with Herman Bell and
the late Albert Nuh Washington (together known as the New York 3) were
convicted in May of 1971 for the killing of two NY police officers. Jalil
is a victim of COINTELPRO. According to information revealed during the
1976 hearings of the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee, the FBI tried to
destroy the Black Liberation Movement by falsely branding several
activists in the movement as "terrorists." The senate's investigation
uncovered information that the Black Panther Party was the primary target
of the FBI COINTELPRO campaign against the BLM. The names of the New York
Three and those of several other BPP members appeared in various
COINTELPRO documents. Here are some interesting facts:
All three members of the New York Three were specifically named in
COINTELPRO documents as members of the black liberation movement who
had to be "neutralized."
FBI documents reveal that five days after the police officers were
killed, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover met secretly at the White House
with President Richard Nixon; his domestic advisor, John Erlichman;
and members of the Watergate "plumbers." Hoover was authorized to
solve the shootings, using the code name NEWKILL (New York killings).
The prosecution concealed the secret White House meeting from the
defense, and the Nixon Library has withheld the taped recordings of
the meeting from defense attorneys. Why?
Documents obtained by the defense under the Freedom of Information
Act show that the prosecution concealed an FBI ballistics report
which showed that the gun in Jalil^s possession when he was
arrested, which was introduced at the trial as the murder weapon, was
not the gun used to kill the officers. Defense attorneys also learned
that the ballistics expert of the New York Police Department who
testified at the trial committed perjury-with the knowledge of the
prosecutor.
Four months after a 1983 petition for a new trial was filed with the
court, all ballistics evidence from the case was removed from the
evidence locker and destroyed, preventing the weapon from being
retested.
Herman Bell was arrested in New Orleans almost two years after the
shootings. In an effort to get his friend and co-worker, Ruben Scott,
to implicate Bell in the shootings, New Orleans police beat Scott
unconscious. New York police officers tortured Scott with an electric
cattle prod, and needles were placed on his testicles. Fearing for
his life and promised that he would not have to serve time on a
pending murder charge, Scott fabricated information used to convict
Bell. Later, Scott told the trial judge, Edward Greenfield, that he
lied about Bell^s involvement. Instead of protecting Scott by
removing him from police custody, Greenfield sent him back to jail
and told prosecutors that Scott was wavering in his testimony. The
judge did not tell defense attorneys about his conversation with
Scott for five weeks. Furthermore, the judge later tried to suppress
the entire matter and refused to hold a hearing on Scott^s
recantation of his trial testimony.
According to the FBI, a drug dealer confessed to having the police
officers killed. The prosecution did not share this information with
defense attorneys.
New York police officers arrested a prostitute who claimed she knew
who killed the two officers. Her name was never given to the defense.
May 19, 1971, only three days before the shooting, two other NYPD
officers were injured. Dhoruba bin Wahad (formerly Richard Moore),
was convicted in that case and served 19 years in prison for
attempted murder. At the time of his arrest, Dhoruba was a. ranking
member of the Black Panther Party. Eventually, in 1990, he was
released due to a successful appeal based on information found in
COINTELPRO documents, which detailed how evidence was manufactured
and testimony perjured. Similar documents have not been allowed as
evidence in the case of the New York 3. Why not?
Apart from Jalil's alleged possession of the murder weapon, the
prosecution's case rested mainly on dubious identification by
eyewitnesses. At a pretrial lineup, one such witness had "thought"
Jalil "might be" one of the killers, while four others said he
"definitely was not."
It is way pat time the truth win out. It is way past time for Jalil^s
freedom.
Sources: Black World Today, Solidarity, Kersplebedeb Political
Prisoner/Prisoner of War Page, Anarchist Black Cross
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