UNITED STATES: Black Power leader framed

BY KEEANGA-YAHMATTA TAYLOR

Jamil al Amin, the former 1960s Black Power leader known as H. Rap Brown, is on trial for his life in Atlanta. Al Amin is accused of shooting two Fulton County sheriff's deputies, killing one.

Prosecutors claim that al Amin "ambushed" the deputies, who were trying to serve him with an arrest warrant for the "crime" of driving without insurance, receiving stolen property and impersonating a police officer. The case is full of holes.

Even the devout Muslim cleric's enemies credit him with cleaning up the formerly drug-plagued West End Atlanta neighbourhood where he lived.

The surviving officer says that he and his partner wounded whoever shot them, and police found a blood trail leading away from the scene of the crime. When the cops found al Amin, he was uninjured.

Al Amin believes that the government is trying to set him up because of his political activities. The FBI has compiled a 44,000-page file on al Amin dating back to the 1960s. In 1995, police tried to frame al Amin for another shooting, threatening the victim with jail if he did not finger al Amin.

Opponents of racism and police violence are mounting a campaign to demand al Amin's freedom.

[Abridged from the US Socialist Worker.]

From Green Left Weekly, February 6, 2002.

Visit the Green Left Weekly home page.

From GLW issue 479