RSS

Tag Archives: FBI misconduct

Jalil Abdul Muntaqim: Political Prisoner Since 1971

Jalil Muntaqim has spent forty one of his sixty years locked behind bars, paying a heavy price for his participation in the Black Liberation Movement, a struggle he has never abandoned, even behind bars.

A Youth of Concious

Jalil, born on October 18, 1951, in Oakland, California, grew up in a family environment imbued with an awareness of the political battles of the day, of the history of Black people in amerika and the struggle for freedom that has been waged on this continent for centuries. As he has explained,

My mother taught us [my sister and I] that we are African. She made that a very important lesson for us; she said, “You are African, don’t let anybody call you anything other than that.” … In our house we used to have pictures of H. Rap Brown, Stokely Carmichael, Malcolm X – so these individuals, these were our icons in the household …

In the 1960s Jalil attended high school in San Jose, California, where he earned a scholarship to an advanced high school math and science program. He also received a summer scholarship for a San Jose State College math and engineering course. Jalil participated in NAACP youth organizing during the civil rights movement. In high school, he became a leading member of the Black Student Union, often touring in “speak-outs” with the BSU Chairman of San Jose State and City College.

As he has stated in the documentary Jalil Muntaqim: A Voice for Liberation:

The assassination of Martin Luther King, that’s one thing that impacted me. The other thing that really impacted me was the 1968 Olympics when John Carlos and Tommie Smith raised their fists in protest – that was significant. John Carlos used to be one of my math tutors, so the culture, the African culture and the politics and the time, the struggle that was going on, the civil rights movement that was going on at that time, being a part of that and being impressed by that – and then, on the other hand seeing the Black Panther Party taking this other stroke after the death of Martin Luther King – after his assassination I began to realize that maybe this non-violent protest thing in not going to be all that there’s going to be in order to make real changes in this country.

The Dark Day

Two months shy of his 20th birthday, Jalil was captured along with Albert “Nuh” Washington in a midnight shoot-out with San Francisco police. When Jalil was arrested, he was a high school graduate and employed as a social worker.

Read the rest of this entry »

Leave a comment

Posted by aseerun on May 22, 2012 in Biographies, Campaigns

Tags: Anthony Bottom, Black Liberation Army, Black Panther Partner, Black Panthers, COINTELPRO, extrajudicial killing, FBI misconduct, FBI setup, Herman Bell, Jalil Abdul Muntaqim, Jalil Muntaqim, John Bownam, New York 3, NY3, NYPD misconduct, San Francisco 8, Sergeant John Young, setup, SF8, torture, torture evidence

Embarrassed by Yonas Fikre’s Disclosure of Proxy Torture, FBI Pursues Punitive Prosecution

17 May

Refusing to collude with the FBI and resisting enlistment into the agency’s army of informants and agent provocateurs is proving to carry hefty consequences. The most recent case of Yonas Fikre is the latest in a string of punitive prosecutions that demonstrate the US government’s eagerness to punish Muslims for their unwillingness to become the devils’ advocates.

Yonas Fikre, an American Muslim now residing in Sweden, was tortured in the United Arab Emirates at the behest of the US government shortly after refusing to become an informant for the FBI.

On 1 May, less than three weeks after Fikre’s allegations were made public, the Justice Department charged Fikre, his brother, Dawit Woldehawariat, and a third man, Abrehaile Haile, with conspiring to hide $75.000 worth of money transfers to the UAE and Sudan from the government, all in violation of federal reporting requirements for large international financial transactions. Woldehawariat, Fikre’s brother, was also charged with failing to file a tax return in 2009 and 2010. There are no allegations of terrorism associated with the charges.

After being stranded abroad by being placed on the No-fly List, Yonas was ominously ’warned’ by a US official about a possible lack of co-operation during an initial courtship to endear his services: ‘The time to help yourself is now‘ the missive ended. Shortly after that, he was abducted and tortured.

Gadeir Abbas, a lawyer with the Council on American-Islamic Relations who has been working with Fikre, informed Mother Jones that the federal charges were retaliation for Fikre’s refusal to cooperate with the FBI.

‘It is disappointing but not surprising that the FBI is retaliating against Yonas by filing specious charges against him after they promised to make his life difficult after he refused to become their informant. While FBI agents lied to Yonas about many things, in this case, it seems that they have kept their word.’

Thomas Nelson, Fikre’s Portland, Oregon-based lawyer, told the Seattle Post-Intelligencer that he was unaware of the charges against his client. But Abbas said he’s been in touch with Nelson since then and the two are working together to decide what to do next.

Read the rest of this entry »

Leave a comment

Posted by aseerun on May 17, 2012 in News Items

Tags: Abrehaile Haile, Dawit Woldehawariat, FBI coercion, FBI misconduct, http://motherjones.com, Nick Baumann, Portland Seven, prosecutorial misconduct, proxy detention, proxy interrogation, rendition, torture, UAE, United Arab Emirates, Younas Fikre

FBI Orders Fikre’s Falaqa – An Account of Torture by Proxy

16 May

Yonas Fikre candidly discusses the FBI’s failed attempt to recruit him as an agent provocateur, followed by the chillingly account of his subsequent arrest and torture in the UEA after the agency placed him on the no-fly-list, barring him from returning to the US. The details of his ordeal and evidence strongly suggest that Emirati intelligence arrested and tortured Fikre not only with the knowledge of the FBI but at their behest.

Leave a comment

Posted by aseerun on May 16, 2012 in Videos

Tags: CAIR, falaqa, FBI coercion, FBI misconduct, percussive torture, proxy detention, proxy interrogation, rendition, stress positions, torture, UAE, United Arab Emirates, Younas Fikre

A Mother’s Words: Laila Yaghi Speaks About Her Son’s Case & Current Situation

30 Apr

Listen to Laila yaghi speaking at an event presented by the National Coalition to Protect Civil Freedoms, held in the Beloved Community Center in Greensboro, NC on April 12, 2012. Filmed by Friends of Human Rights.

Laila Yaghi, mother of Ziyad Yaghi, speaks about her son’s current situation after his conviction and sentence of thirty-two years. She describes the FBI harassment she and her son have experienced and continued to experience as he was pressured, threatened and coerced in the FBI’s attempts to recruit him as an informant and later to cause him to to testify against others.

His refusal to comply, to lie, and become an informant earned him the ire of the FBI and Federal Prosecutors and so he now sits in solitary confinement with a thirty-two year sentence, when not a single shred of evidence was presented showing that any crime had been committed or attempted. What then was his crime except that he was steadfast against being used to harm and oppress others?

Find out more here about Ziyad’s case and situation and what you can do to help right this wrong and help a mother and son find peace and justice.

Leave a comment

Posted by aseerun on April 30, 2012 in Collateral Damage, Videos

Tags: FBI coercion, FBI misconduct, Friends of Human Rights, Laila Yaghi, National Coalition to Protect Civil Freedoms, Ziyad Yaghi

Hide or Speak: What to Do When the FBI Comes Round…

20 Apr

In April 2012, MCLU attorney, Najmeh Vahid Dastjerdi, explained why you should not speak with the FBI without an attorney present and recommended ways to deal with such FBI requests. We hope you find this helpful and you become a member of this organization at www.MuslimCLU.org, so our efforts to educate the public and defend against religious persecution can continue.

‘I’ve heard of cases where the FBI tries to coerce people and obtain information just in those few moments as the client refuses to speak. That is why I recommend that a recorder is carried and the agents advised about the recording. That way they won’t try to do that knowing they’re on tape.

I [also] think it is a great idea to carry the business card of your attorney and hand it over to the agents. However, you would also want to get the agent’s information for your records. It’s important to have an account of who (which agent and which agency) has approached you and when. It’s important to have a record.

If you are subpoenaed by the government to testify, you should only testify. This means that you should only talk and answer questions in front of the Grand Jury or Jury. Some people think they should talk to the agents or the government’s attorney because of the subpoena. When you testify in court, your words are transcribed, so you will not be accused of lying, if you tell the truth and they cannot start fishing i.e. ask you about other matters. Also, they will have to let you know if you are the target of an investigation before your testimony. In both cases, you MUST hire an attorney before testifying because you may turn into the government’s target in the process depending on the case.’

Leave a comment

Posted by aseerun on April 20, 2012 in Videos

Tags: FBI, FBI coercion, FBI misconduct, Form 302, http://www.muslimclu.org, Muslim Civil Liberties Union

Yonas Fikre Believed to be Latest Victim in FBI’s Proxy Torture & Detention Program

18 Apr

Last June, while Yonas Fikre was visiting the United Arab Emirates, the Muslim and United States Citizen from Portland, Oregon was suddenly arrested and detained by Emirati security forces. For the next three months, Fikre claims, he was repeatedly interrogated and tortured. Fikre says he was beaten on the soles of his feet, kicked and punched, and held in stress positions while interrogators demanded he “cooperate” and barked questions that were eerily similar to those posed to him not long before by FBI agents and other American officials who had requested a meeting with him.

Fikre had been visiting family in Khartoum, Sudan, when, in April 2010, the officials got in touch with him. He agreed to meet with them, but ultimately balked at cooperating with FBI questioning without a lawyer present and he rebuffed a request to become an informant. Pressing him to cooperate, the agents told him he was on the no-fly list and could not return home unless he aided the bureau, Fikre says. The following week he received an email from one of the US officials; it arrived from a State Department address:

“Thanks for meeting with us last week in Sudan. While we hope to get your side of the issues we keep hearing about, the choice is yours to make. The time to help yourself is now.”
Read the rest of this entry »

Leave a comment

Posted by aseerun on April 18, 2012 in News Items

Tags: Al-Qaeda, Amir Meshal, FBI coercion, FBI misconduct, Gulet Mohamed, http://motherjones.com, Masjed-as-Saber, Mohamed Osman Mohamud, Naji Hamdan, Nick Baumann, percussive torture, Portland Seven, proxy detention, proxy interrogation, rendition, Sharif Mobley, stress positions, torture, UAE, United Arab Emirates, Yahya Wehelie, Younas Fikre, Yusuf Wehelie

Tariq Mehanna: April 12, 2012 (Sentencing Statement* Delivered from Moakley Federal Courthouse)

16 Apr

In the name of God the Most Gracious the Most Merciful

It was four years ago this month that I was finishing a work shift at a local hospital, and as I was walking out to my car, two federal agents approached me, and they said that I had a choice to make. They said I could do things the easy way, or I could do them the hard way. The “easy” way, as they explained, was that I become an informant for the government, and if I did so I would never have to see the inside of a courtroom or a prison cell. The hard way is what you see before you. Here I am, having spent the majority of the four years since that day, in a solitary cell, the size of a small closet, in which I am locked down for twenty-three hours a day, living with rapists and murderers and home invaders and child molesters. The FBI and these prosecutors worked very hard – and the government spent millions of tax dollars – to put me in that cell, to keep me there, to put me on trial, and finally to have me stand here before you today to be sentenced to even more time in a cell.

In the weeks leading up to this moment, many people have given me thier suggestions as to what it is I should say to you. Some suggested that I should plead for mercy in hopes of a light sentence, others suggested I’m going to be hit hard either way. What I want to do for the next couple minutes is simply talk about myself.

When I refused to become an informant, the government responded by charging me with the “crime” of supporting the Mujahidin fighting the occupation of Muslim countries around the world. Or, as they like to call them, the “terrorists.” But I wasn’t born in any Muslim country. I was born and raised right here, in America, and this is something that angers many people: that I could be an American and believe the things I believe, and say the things that I say, and take the positions I take. But everything a man is exposed to in his environment is like an ingredient which shapes his outlook and shapes his life one way or another, and I’m no different. So, in more ways than one, it’s because of America that I am who I am. Read the rest of this entry »

1 Comment

Posted by aseerun on April 16, 2012 in Letters from Tariq Mehanna, News Items, Risala

Tags: FBI informant, FBI misconduct, http://www.freetarek.com/, Sentencing Statment, Tarek Mehanna, Tariq Mehanna

The Case of Gulet Mohamed: Brutalised Abroad at the Behest of America

11 Feb

Gulet Mohamed was an average 18-year-old American citizen before a visit to family overseas resulted in his torture and indefinite detention in a Kuwaiti prison.

Mohamed, whose family is Somali, immigrated to the United States with his parents at the age of three, fleeing the devastating civil war that ravaged that East African country.

Mohed Mohamed, his older brother, maintained that his family, having fled Somalia in 1995, has always been pro-American and grateful to the United States for its intervention in Somalia’s civil war in the 1990s.

Zahra Mohamed, his sister, explained that Gulet, like any other American teenager, grew up playing basketball, had an iPhone, and obsessed over the game Madden NFL. But like many American teenagers, Gulet had a bad case of wanderlust. He wanted to travel abroad to learn more about his heritage, Zahra explained.

He begged his mother to let him leave: after all, he had never known his father, and he wanted to learn Arabic. Traveling to the Middle East would let him get to know his father’s side of the family, rediscover his roots, experience his ancestral homeland, and learn the language of the Quran.

In March, 2009, Gulet Mohamed departed from Alexandria, Virginia to study Arabic and Islam in in Sana’a, the capital of Yemen. Gulet, the most adventurous of the seven siblings, was the first member of his family to travel outside the United States since the family’s relocation.

After several weeks of study, he left to visit his maternal relations in Somalia at his mother’s insistence. Residing in his uncle’s home for several months, Gulet found the environs uncomfortably hot and painfully sickening through bouts of food poisoning that left his youthful wanderlust unsated. Mohamed again ventured to visit other family living in Kuwait and to continue his studies in Arabic.

Throughout his journey of seeking knowledge and rekindling the ties of kinship, Mohamed traveled on an authentic American passport with valid visas for all of the countries on his whimsical itinerary. His past history had no indication of any violent or criminal activity, nor had he ever been arrested.

Yet, on December 20, 2010, when Mohamed went to the airport in Kuwait City to have his visa renewed (a process he had routinely engaged in every three months without incident for the past year), he was told by a visa officer that his name had been “marked” in the computer.

After five hours of uneasily waiting, Mohamed had finished sending his brother an email when he was handcuffed, blindfolded, and kidnapped by two men in civilian clothes. After a fifteen minute drive in a SUV, Mohamed was deposited in an undisclosed location. He was then dragged into a room and interrogated by officials who refused to identify themselves.

Read the rest of this entry »

Leave a comment

Posted by aseerun on February 11, 2012 in Flashback

Tags: Anwar al-Aulaqi, Anwar al-Awlaki, eric holder, falaqa, FBI coercion, FBI misconduct, Gadeir Abbas, Gulet Mohamed, Kuwait, Mohed Mohamedm Zahra Mohamed, percussive torture, proxy detention, proxy interrogation, Refugee, rendered, Rendetion, Sana’a, sleep deprivation, somali, Somalia, torture, unlawful interrogation, Yemen

Muslims Face Life In Prison for Crimes the US Government Cannot Even Articulate With Acuity

12 Jan

A trip to the Middle East made by Ziyad Yaghi (left) and Omar Aly Hassan was the focus of terrorism-related charges against the two North Carolina men.

This Friday 23-year-old Ziyad Yaghi and his co-defendant, Omar Aly Hassan, also 23, both convicted terrorism-related charges, will be handed down sentences for conspiring to provide material support to unspecified terrorists and, in the case of Yaghi, conspiring to harm unspecified persons abroad.

The case, which seems to be largely off the radar for major civil liberties groups and national Arab and Muslim organizations, raises questions about the use of preemptive prosecution to get convictions in the vast majority of domestic terrorism cases. The government’s case also largely focuses on speech made by the defendants, and rests on the testimony of paid undercover informants.

Conspiracy against unknown persons in an uknown place at an unknown time

The US government alleges that Yaghi and Hassan conspired with alleged ringleader Daniel Patrick Boyd to provide material support to an unspecified group of terrorists in an unspecified place at an unspecified time. They were also indicted — and Yaghi convicted — for conspiracy to kidnap, kill, maim or harm an unspecified group of people in an unspecified place at an unspecified time.

The US government alleged in a 2009 indictment that Yaghi and Hassan traveled to Israel in 2007 to meet up with Boyd and one of Boyd’s sons, Zakariya, for the purpose of waging “jihad” — what that specifically entailed was not detailed in the indictment.

After the Israeli government denied entry to all four men, Yaghi and Hassan traveled to Jordan and later Egypt. The Boyds traveled to Jordan, where they were met by Daniel Boyd’s other son, Dylan, but did not meet with Yaghi and Hassan there.

Upon their return to the United States approximately one month later, Yaghi and Hassan apparently ceased contact with the Boyd family.

During the men’s trial last September, an FBI agent admitted upon cross-examination by Hassan’s attorney that the government had no evidence of contact between Hassan and Boyd after the 2007 trip.

Dylan Boyd, who testified for the prosecution as part of a plea agreement, told the FBI in an interview that he “hadn’t seen or spoken to Yaghi and Hassan since the 2007 trip.”

It was revealed during the trial that the Boyd family had been under surveillance since 2005, and Yaghi and Hassan had been monitored starting around the time of their 2007 trip.
Read the rest of this entry »

Leave a comment

Posted by aseerun on January 12, 2012 in News Items

Tags: Boyd, civil liberties, Daniel Boyce, Daniel Boyd, Daniel Patrick Boyd, domestic terrorism, Dylan Boyd, FBI, FBI coercion, FBI informant, FBI misconduct, http://electronicintifada.net, Hysen Sherifi, Laila Yaghi, Mohammad Omar Aly Hassan, preemptive prosecution, shady informants, Tarek Mehanna, Tariq Mehanna, Zakariya Boyd, Ziyad Yaghi

A Letter from Laila Yaghi (2009)

27 Dec

Ziyad Yaghi is a 22 year old American Muslim of Palestinian descent who was born in Jordan after his parents left Upstate N.Y for a job overseas. Ziyad and his parents then came back to Upstate N.Y when he was about 2 years old. When Ziyad was about 3 years old, he moved to NC with his mother and brother.

Ziyad is known as a kind and gentle person by family, friends and colleagues. He is always giving money to the homeless and to anyone that asks him for money, Ziyad will give him or her the last dollar in his pocket. The FBI and media have tried to depict my son as someone evil when in reality he’s soft, gentle and caring. He sticks his neck out for his friends and is always helping people in need.

My son is a now a victim of the FBI’s oppression.

About two years ago (2007) when Ziyad was only 19, he and his friend went overseas to his home country (Jordan) and from there, he and his friend also visited Egypt and had a wonderful time and then came back to the US. Soon after their trip overseas, the FBI was knocking on my door and asking me questions. When Ziyad and his friend came back, they were constantly harassed and watched by the FBI.

Before Ziyad and his friend went to Jordan they knew a specific person of interest to the FBI for a short while, then when they came back and had no contact with this person, the FBI continued to harass my son and his friend and they tried to pressure them to say something, even though Ziyad and his friend had nothing to say. Both boys insisted that they didn’t know anything personal about the person the FBI were conducting an investigation on and couldn’t understand what the FBI was looking for!

Two years later (2009), a simple fight broke between the boys and one of the friends of Ziyad The FBI made it sound so horrendous and tried to charge Ziyad and his friend with many things and threw them in jail. The FBI came once more to my door and asked me more questions and then one of them told me that he wants the boys in jail because he wants them to feel more pressured so that they will tell them something about the individual the FBI have been inquiring about earlier. Again that same name was mentioned and the boys stayed in jail almost four months and when the FBI found that there is nothing against these boys that could prove what they were looking for, my son and his friend were released.

After two months, when my son had cleaned the apartment for me and was about to cook, he went to the pool for a short swim, the FBI came with a swat team and arrested my son with new charges! The charges were so absurd! Ziyad and his friend were charged with conspiring to kill and maim people abroad! The FBI two days later came to my apartment to give me my son’s swimming shorts and told me that they think Ziyad knows something about the person they’ve been inquiring about from the beginning and that “Ziyad is not telling us and that he needs to cooperate with us!”

Interestingly, one of the FBI officers told me and some of Ziyad’s friends that he is trying to get promoted. So can you see how the FBI works? They take innocent people from their homes and throw them in jail for no wrong doing? Where is the justice here? Why would my son be taken away for no reason? I cannot explain the pain I’ve been feeling since July (of 2009) and I’ve been in deep depression crying all the time because of the injustice done to my son and many other Muslims in America.

We are a normal American family. This is outrageous! We are only being targeted because we are Muslims. We have done nothing wrong! Nothing wrong! Ziyad has a kind heart; he is someone that refuses to kill ants so how is he going to kill humans?

Please Support Ziyad and take a step in bringing an end to the Oppression done to my Son and many others. Silence is not an option in helping the oppressed, rather is it merely defeatism. We NEED to speak out and take ACTION to end these nightmares.

Yours respectfully,
Laila Yaghi