Word: jamal
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...catalyst of these emotions is Mumia Abu-Jamal, 41, a prizewinning journalist. He is scheduled to die by lethal injection at 10 p.m. on Aug. 17 for a crime he insists he did not commit: the 1981 slaying of police officer Daniel Faulkner. Sympathizers around the globe from Dublin to Soweto hail him as a political prisoner punished for taking journalistic aim at politicians, police and the prison system (most recently in a book entitled Live from Death Row). If he is put to death, they argue, he will be the first American since Ethel and Julius Rosenberg...
...hearing last week in Philadelphia was convened to determine whether Abu-Jamal will get a second trial. A high-powered defense team is not only raising constitutional questions about the first trial but also challenging the investigation and evidence that led to Abu-Jamal's conviction. But Joseph McGill, the former assistant district attorney who prosecuted Abu-Jamal in June 1982, declares that it was "by far one of the strongest cases against a defendant that I've ever had." At the time, the jury seemed to agree: the panel deliberated only four hours...
...prosecution's case, both then and now, begins with a traffic violation. Just before 4 a.m. on Dec. 9, 1981, Faulkner stopped a Volkswagen going the wrong way on a one-way street. The driver was William Cook, Abu-Jamal's brother. The prosecution contends that when Faulkner tried to handcuff Cook, Abu-Jamal, who was moonlighting in the vicinity as a taxi driver, jumped from his cab and ran to his brother's defense. By this account, Abu-Jamal shot Faulkner in the back. When the policeman returned fire, hitting Abu-Jamal in the chest, the journalist straddled...
...defense team, headed by Leonard Weinglass, disputes virtually every aspect of that account. The team notes that one of the three eyewitnesses who identified Abu-Jamal as the gunman was a prostitute with three pending felony charges--and thus had cause to cooperate with the police. Another witness, cabdriver Robert Chobert, told police on the night of the shooting that a man much larger than Abu-Jamal had stood over Faulkner and fired shots, then "ran away." Abu-Jamal's lawyers say other witnesses who did not testify also reported seeing a heavyset man shoot Faulkner and flee...
...council was considering passing a resolution calling for a stay of execution for Abu-Jamal and demanding that a new and fair trial be held...