Second Seas of David trial goes to jury
http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=2643
The retrial of Seas of David cult members has gone into the jury phase, with the government hoping it will not see a replay of what happened in December (2007), when a http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=3980 jury acquitted one of the accused and declared itself deadlocked on the verdicts of six others.
The second trial was an attempt by the federal government to finally get a conviction in a case that was denounced as governmental abuse of power in the cause of http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=3174.”The Seas of David were a black Muslim/voodoo cult that was targeted by federal law enforcement in a much publicized “terror” case that was launched to massive fanfare when the group was arrested in the summer of 2006. The now disgraced Alberto Gonzales, then the Attorney General, joined the White House, Homeland Security and various agencies to cheer the arrests, which they claimed highlighted how effective the government has been in expensively clamping down on international and domestic terrorism in the aftermath of 9/11.
When details of the case were released to the press, however, the government was widely derided for concocting a prosecution that many saw as weak and cynical. The government admitted at the time of the arrests that America was never in any danger from the “terror ring,” calling the “plot” “more aspirational than operational.”
In December, Lyglenson Lemorin, a Haitian national, was acquitted after jury deliberations lasting nine days. The jurors also said that they were unable to reach a verdict on the other men. The government immediately declared that it wasn’t finished with the “Liberty City Seven” (“Six” since Lemorin’s acquittal), and a new jury was chosen in January of 2008. http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=3873 is the black Miami slum where the group was based.
The arrested blacks were members of a sect called the Seas of David, a splinter from the http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=2838 to their belief system, which also apparently had an antigovernment component.
According to reports, the Federal Bureau of Investigation targeted the Seas of David, spinning an elaborate tale to make the blacks think they were part of a vast al Qaeda plot. The gullible blacks were never in touch with al Qaeda; instead their “al Qaeda contact,” known to them as “Brother Mohammed,” was an undercover federal informant. A crack squad of technical officers recorded the luckless blacks allegedly agreeing to Brother Mohammed’s proposals, in living color: bomb Chicago’s Sears Tower, level the Empire State Building, blast various Hollywood landmarks and, while they were at it, take out Miami’s FBI offices.
The case was packed with absurd details that would be comical if they were not so sad, but among them were a request from the “terror cell” for “al Qaeda” to supply the Seas of David members with shoes, and the need for a bus pass for federal “surveillance personnel” following the marks: the “terror suspects” couldn’t afford their own cars. The most egregious display of pathos was probably when the feds, with full hidden video coverage, persuaded their black targets to “pledge allegiance” to Osama and al Qaeda. Unsurprisingly, the main plank of the defence was the claim that the Seas of David were not the pathetic clowns they appear to be, but were actually hustlers seeking to “play” al Qaeda out of $50,000. Better a knave than a chump.
The idiocy surrounding this prosecution may be amusing to some, but to those with a belief in Anglo-Saxon justice this kind of manipulation belongs with Alberto Gonzales’s origins: in Latin America. Setups and scams in the name of the lesser evil are just the kind of things America was supposed to be against. But when this behavior is done to take http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=3149 sets in. Many also have the sneaking suspicion that annoying pantomimes people are put through at airports, especially, are simply public relations charades in the hope that we will see that the government is “doing something” about terrorism.
The post 9/11 “national security” establishment has become adept at selling http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=3140, charged with uncommitted crimes nearly a decade old, based partly on “evidence” going back to 1990 and 1991 and involving that old chestnut, a “weapon of mass destruction.”
Most worringly is the fact that the same “national security” establishment that shamelessly launches ridiculous operations like the Seas of David “sting” is exploiting public fear to erode freedom in America. The latest legislation is a http://wvwnews.net/story.php?id=2367 act, the “Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007,” which has the potential of criminalizing peaceful dissent.
Most “Black Islam” in the United States, like http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=3688 region. The Arabs use the same word for “black” and “slave.”
One black Muslim terrorist who complained about Arab racism was Khalfan Khamis Mohamed, convicted of the 1998 United States embassy attacks in Tanzania and Kenya. In the penalty phase of the United States vs. Osama bin Laden et al (2001) trial, Mohamed’s attorney argued that al-Qaeda was an Arab racist organization that discriminated against his client because he was black. He argued that al-Qaeda provided escape routes for Arabs but not for black operatives.
All in all, the Seas of David “sting” was a gross abuse of public fear, and should give pause to anyone concerned about the potential for havoc when a government is unaccountable.