Tribunal for Mumia Puts System on Trial Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit ------------------------- Via Workers World News Service Reprinted from the November 13, 1997 issue of Workers World newspaper ------------------------- POLITICAL PRISONER MUMIA: NO JUSTICE FROM COURT, SO PEOPLE WILL PUT SYSTEM ON TRIAL By Vanessa Lewis On Dec. 6, a "People's International Tribunal for Justice for Mumia Abu-Jamal" will convene in Philadelphia to hear evidence against a number of government officials for conspiracy to silence the voice of Mumia Abu-Jamal. All the evidence presented at this tribunal will clearly show why all the original charges should be dropped against him. Abu-Jamal, an African American political activist and journalist, was framed in the killing of a Philadelphia police officer in 1981. His ensuing trial was run by Judge Albert Sabo. Sabo, a former undersheriff and member of the Fraternal Order of Police, has sentenced more people to death than any other judge in the United States. The FOP openly campaigns for the execution of Abu-Jamal. Although there was no conclusive evidence against him, Abu-Jamal was convicted of murder by an all-white jury. He was then sentenced to death. He has been on death row for the last 16 years. He has been denied appeal after appeal in the state and federal courts. He has already once been given a death warrant--which was only rescinded after a mass mobilization and march on Phila delphia just before the scheduled execution date. Efforts to win a pardon from Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge or President Bill Clinton have gone ignored. In the last two years, new evidence that points to Abu- Jamal's innocence has been brought forth. This includes the testimony of Pamela Jenkins and Veronica Jones. Originally eyewitnesses for the prosecution, they have now said the police coerced and threatened them to finger Mumia Abu- Jamal. In spite of these revelations, Abu-Jamal has continued to be denied a new trial. It is evident that there can be no justice for him in the U.S. justice system without a continuing movement to demand it. The International People's Tribunal for Justice for Mumia Abu-Jamal will hear charges to indict the following co- conspirators: Ridge, the Pennsylvania attorney general, the Department of Corrections, the Philadelphia Police Department, the Fraternal Order of Police, Philadelphia District Attorney Lynn Abraham and her predecessors, the FBI and its Counter Intelligence Program (COINTELPRO), the U.S. Justice Department--as well as the ruling establishment of Philadelphia, the media, and others to be named. The tribunal's mission statement says: "The above are charged with conspiracy to silence journalist and people's advocate Mumia Abu-Jamal, using false charges, a fraudulent trial, brutal imprisonment, and imposing the death penalty to silence him forever." The tribunal will expose this "collaboration of different government departments with so-called `private institutions' to silence revolutionaries or anyone who fights for justice." Among the tribunal's endorsers and conveners are the Jericho '98 March for Political Prisoners Coordinating Committee, former Puerto Rican political prisoner Rafael Cancel Miranda, the Committee for a Better North Philadelphia, AFT Local 3882 President Trudy Rudnick, "Transgender Warriors" author Leslie Feinberg, the National People's Campaign, Equal Justice USA/ Quixote Center, Texas death row prisoners, the Baltimore All-Peoples Congress, and former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark. Information on attending or contributing funds for the People's International Tribunal in Philadelphia is available by phone at (215) 476-8812. - END - (Copyright Workers World Service: Permission to reprint granted if source is cited. For more information contact Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011; via e-mail: ww@workers.org. For subscription info send message to: info@workers.org. Web: http://workers.org) ================================================================= NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us 339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org e-mail: nyt@blythe.org ================================================================= nytrc-11.07.97-04:07:59-21493