"Abu-Jamal Case Generates Support Worldwide" Linn Washington Jr.

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Excerpt below; whole article here: http://en.afrik.com/article16974.html

What makes people from Brazil to Berlin and beyond rally in support of a new trial for America’s most recognized death row inmate – Mumia Abu-Jamal – award-winning journalist and convicted cop killer?

Many, like Victor Toro from Chile, see Abu-Jamal’s legal battles as symbolizing struggles of oppressed people worldwide.

“For us, Mumia is our Mandela. He is a political prisoner and a revolutionary,” said Toro, who was expelled from Chile in 1976 due to his activism against the notorious dictator Augusto Pinochet – whose U.S.-backed regime tortured Toro and his wife.

“In America there is racism and violence against people of color,” Toro said recently during a Philadelphia event for Abu-Jamal, the former radio reporter and Black Panther Party (BPP) member from 1968 to 1970 during his mid-teenage years.

Abu-Jamal, despite confinement in a death row isolation cell for over twenty-five years, remains prolific publishing six acclaimed books and thousands of perceptive commentaries.

Many radio stations worldwide regularly broadcast Abu-Jamal’s commentaries on current events. Interestingly, his books and commentaries rarely reference his case where he’s proclaimed innocence since his 1981 arrest.

Abu-Jamal holds ‘Honorary Citizen’ status in over 20 cities worldwide including Montreal and Paris. The European Parliament and South African labor unions support Abu-Jamal receiving a new trial as does Amnesty International.

French supporters of Abu-Jamal include Julia Wright, daughter of acclaimed Afro-American novelist Richard Wright and Mireille Mendes-France, daughter of Caribbean-born psychiatrist/philosopher Franz Fanon whose books on colonialism influenced the teenaged Abu-Jamal.

Those supporting Abu-Jamal’s execution – like Pa Governor Ed Rendell –denigrate Abu-Jamal’s worldwide supporters as dupes, blinded by propaganda generated in support of the murderer responsible for shooting Philadelphia Policeman Daniel Faulkner.

The case against Abu-Jamal arguably contains compelling aspects of guilt, albeit circumstantial and lacking conclusive forensic evidence normally produced in high-profile prosecutions.

The two policemen claiming Abu-Jamal confessed didn’t report this significant evidence for over two months. Police experts never matched bullets removed from Officer Faulkner to Abu-Jamal’s legally registered gun.

During the time of Abu-Jamal’s arrest, trial and death sentence, Ed Rendell was Philadelphia’s District Attorney – its chief prosecutor.

Courts – state and federal – have overturned many murder convictions obtained during Rendell’s DA tenure citing incidents of misconduct by his prosecutors inclusive of withholding evidence of innocence and engaging in racially discriminatory jury selection practices – two improprieties polluting Abu-Jamal’s conviction.

While mounds of evidence unearthed since Abu-Jamal’s 1982 conviction document numerous legal violations, courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court, continuously uphold Abu-Jamal’s conviction.

Conviction advocates trumpet this court ruling record while supporters criticize courts for employing irregularities to refuse him the relief given other inmates raising the same legal claims.

Curiously, Philadelphia and Pennsylvania courts found no errors – evidentiary or procedural – in Abu-Jamal’s case despite finding major flaws in 86 Philadelphia death penalty convictions between Abu-Jamal’s 1981 arrest and October 2009.

The U.S. Supreme Court recently ordered a federal appeals court to reconsider its decision voiding Abu-Jamal’s death sentence.