NYC, Dhoruba bin Wahad, Reach Settlement 

Via NY Transfer News * All the News That Doesn't Fit

Friday December 08 03:27 PM EST

Former Black Panther Settles Suit

NEW YORK (AP) - Ending a 25-year legal battle, the city has agreed to pay
$490,000 to a former Black Panther who claimed he was wrongly imprisoned for
19 years for the attempted murder of two police officers.

The settlement with Dhoruba al-Mujahid bin Wahad was reached just before his
civil rights lawsuit was to go to trial in federal court Thursday.

The city admitted no wrongdoing.

Wahad, known as Richard Moore when he was a field secretary for the
Panthers, was charged in 1971 with shooting and wounding two officers whose
job was to guard the home of the Manhattan district attorney.

Wahad's 1973 conviction was overturned in 1990 when a judge ruled that the
government had failed to turn over evidence to the defense.

In the course of his lawsuit, filed in 1975, Wahad obtained more than
300,000 pages of FBI documents that he said showed the government's attempt
to discredit the Panthers and other groups. The documents, he said, showed
that he had been prosecuted maliciously.

Wahad, 56, has lived in Ghana since he was freed.

 
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nytrc-12.08.00-21:12:28-23139