|
Muslim Scholar Held In Contempt Over Media Interviews
 |
| Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin smiles during a pre-trial hearing |
ATLANTA, Jan. 8 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - A Fulton Superior Court judge has found Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin in contempt of court for interviews published in news outlets, including the New York Times and Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Judge Stephanie B. Manis said Monday the Muslim scholar, who rose to prominence in the 1960s as African-American activist H. Rap Brown, would not be allowed to make telephone calls from jail, mail any letters or have any visitors other than his lawyers until jury selection is completed.
The judge said the timing of Al-Amin's public statements appeared aimed at prejudicing jurors.
"I think the comments of the defendant may taint the jury pool," the judge said. "He can profess his innocence, but in the courtroom, not in the newspaper."
Manis stripped Al-Amin of his telephone privileges and limited his visitors to the Fulton County jail.
Judge Manis has previously barred all public comment by participants in the Al-Amin's case. Pretrial hearings were scheduled to begin Monday, 7 January, with jury selection starting on Tuesday.
Al-Amin faces capital murder charges in the death of a Fulton County deputy and the wounding of another deputy nearly two years ago. Prosecutors said Al-Amin killed Fulton County Sheriff's Deputy, Ricky Kinchen, 35, and wounded his partner, Deputy Aldranon English, then 28. The officers were allegedly shot as they tried to serve a warrant on Al-Amin.
"I can't even say I'm innocent," Al-Amin complained in the telephone interview with the Times, published in Sunday's edition. "Do you know of any other defendant who is not allowed to say he is innocent? It’s just part of the same continual persecution and prosecution against me, just part and parcel of the same thing."
Al-Amin's interview with the Times - conducted over a pay telephone at the Fulton County Jail - echoed a seven-page letter he sent to his congregation at Atlanta Community Mosque in West End.
The New York Times published Sunday portions of a telephone interview with Al-Amin. In December, the Journal-Constitution published portions of a letter Al-Amin had written to members of his mosque. In the letter, the scholar proclaimed his innocence.
In the interview, Al-Amin claimed authorities targeted him because of his embrace of Islam.
"They are trying to crush Islam before it realizes its own worth and strength," Al-Amin said. "When you hear them talk about the 'crusade,' you know what they are talking about."
In the Times interview, Al-Amin was quoted as strongly criticizing the judge's gag order and attributing charges against him to a government conspiracy dating to his days as a 1960s black power activist.
"The FBI has a file on me containing 40,000 documents, but prior to this incident, their investigation has produced no fruits, no indictments, no arrests," he said. "At some point, they had to make something happen to justify all the investigations and all the money they've spent.”
"More than anything else, they still fear a personality, a character coming up among African-Americans who could galvanize support among all the different elements of the African-American community," Al-Amin added.
After portions of the letter were quoted in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, prosecutors asked Manis to hold Al-Amin in contempt of court.
Prosecutors have not specified the punishment they will seek.
The usual punishment for contempt of court is minimal jail time or an admonishment from the judge, said Drew Findling, an Atlanta defense lawyer and board member of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers.
Bruce Harvey, one of Al-Amin's lawyers, declined to comment Sunday, citing the gag order. Efforts to reach prosecutors were unsuccessful.
Security will be tight as the trial gets under way this week. About 1,500 prospective jurors have been summoned, and the case is expected to bring legions of onlookers. Among them will be Al-Amin's followers from his mosque, numerous law enforcement officers and 10 to 15 members of Kinchen's family.
"This trial is a piece of history in the making," said Jim Hickey, a filmmaker from Decatur, who said he plans to document the trial. "I don't know if Jamil is guilty or innocent, but I do know that there has been a history of government surveillance on him. I think it is important for people to witness the trial and make sure it is fair."
Before his arrest, Al-Amin led one of the nation's largest black Muslim groups, the National Ummah. The movement, which has formed 36 mosques around the nation, is credited with revitalizing poverty-stricken pockets such as Atlanta's West End, where Al-Amin owns a grocery store.
That's where police say Al-Amin ambushed the two sheriff's deputies trying to serve an arrest warrant. English survived and identified Al-Amin as the gunman, police say.
Al-Amin was arrested after the shooting west of Montgomery, Ala., after fleeing a shed in a burst of gunfire and being pursued through the woods by federal and local law officers.
As Rap Brown, Al-Amin served as a leader of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), which later became the Student National Coordinating Committee. In 1967, he said violence was "as American as cherry pie."
He changed his name when he converted to the Dar-ul Islam movement while serving a five-year sentence for his role in a robbery that ended in a shootout with New York police.
Al-Amin's trial was originally scheduled for September but was postponed because Manis said anti-Muslim sentiment after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks made it difficult to seat a jury at that point.
|
