email: partisandefense@earthlink.net www.partisandefense.org
PRESS RELEASE – 2 January 2008
Contact: Kevin Gilroy (212) 406-4252
Just Out! PDC Fact Sheet Presents Evidence of Mumia Abu-Jamal’s Innocence: A Refutation of Murdered by Mumia’s Big Lies in the Service of Legal Lynching
A new fact sheet providing massive evidence of the innocence of Mumia Abu-Jamal was released by the Partisan Defense Committee on 31 December 2007. It is online at http://www.partisandefense.org/ and provides a detailed, point-by-point refutation of the book Murdered by Mumia (The Lyons Press, December 2007). The PDC fact sheet exposes the book as “a compendium of myths, falsehoods, misrepresentations and omissions—all aimed at the legal lynching of an innocent man, Mumia Abu-Jamal.”
Mumia is a former Black Panther Party spokesman, targeted by the Feds and cops since the age of 15, who became a supporter of the MOVE organization and a respected journalist known as the “voice of the voiceless.” He was framed up for the 9 December 1981 killing of Police Officer Daniel Faulkner in Philadelphia and sentenced to death explicitly for his political views. With a decision on Mumia’s case by the Third Circuit Court of Appeals due any day, the fight for his freedom is now reaching a critical stage.
Murdered by Mumia, by Michael Smerconish and Maureen Faulkner, Daniel Faulkner’s widow, claims that the records of Mumia’s 1982 trial and pre-trial witness statements “tell the story of how Abu-Jamal murdered my husband.” In fact, the trial records are replete with inconsistencies, unproven assertions, contradictory evidence and all the hallmarks of a racist frame-up. There is no evidence that Mumia shot Daniel Faulkner, and the “facts” claimed in Murdered by Mumia supposedly proving this story do not exist in the trial record. Since the 1982 trial, there has been a growing mountain of new evidence, including the sworn confession of Arnold Beverly that he, not Mumia, killed Faulkner. This evidence proves not only that Mumia is innocent, but that the police and prosecution falsified and suppressed evidence, coerced witnesses and orchestrated a monumental frame-up.
The PDC’s fact sheet was developed in consultation with attorneys Rachel Wolkenstein and Jonathan Piper, who were on Mumia’s legal team from 1995 to 1999. It cites transcripts, including dates and page numbers where testimony appears, from the 1982 trial and pre-trial testimony and 1995-97 post-conviction relief (PCRA) hearings (all designated as “N.T.”--Notes of Testimony), as well as affidavits filed in federal and state courts and police investigation reports (IIR--Investigation Interview Record), and citations from Murdered by Mumia including page numbers.
Journalists, activists, researchers—anyone concerned with uncovering the truth—should also see the July 2006 PDC pamphlet, The Fight to Free Mumia Abu-Jamal—Mumia Is Innocent!, which includes a detailed factual review of the case as well as affidavits and declarations. It is available at http://www.partisandefense.org/pubs/innocent.
The PDC’s aim is to arm those fighting for Mumia with the facts to refute the mendacity of those who want to execute him. This is part of the PDC’s effort to mobilize mass protest action on Mumia’s behalf that is centered on the social power of the labor movement and is based on the understanding that Mumia Abu-Jamal is an innocent man, the victim of a racist and political frame-up who must be freed now!
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The PDC is a class-struggle, non-sectarian legal and social defense organization which champions cases and causes in the interest of the whole of the working people. This purpose is in accordance with the political views of the Spartacist League.
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