Vol. 73/No. 22      June 8, 2009

“The government wouldn’t be satisfied until they got a conviction. They kept going back over and over,” Pauletta Adams, a Liberty City resident, told the Militant. “That was straight out wrong. The government didn’t have a case. They got rid of juries until they got one that would cooperate and get a conviction.”

On May 12 the trial of six Black workers here concluded with five—Narseal Batiste, Patrick Abraham, Stanley Phanor, Rotschild Augustine, and Burson Augustin—found guilty of “conspiracy to commit terrorism” and one, Naudimar Herrera, found innocent.

The first trial ended in acquittal of a seventh defendant and a hung jury for the other six. The six were retried in 2008 and again the jury was deadlocked. Federal authorities moved to a third trial, which again appeared to be heading to a mistrial until Judge Joan Lenard removed a juror for supposedly refusing to deliberate with the others.

According to the Miami Herald, some of the jurors told the judge that juror No. 4—all remained anonymous under the judge’s order—did not want to “follow the court’s instructions” and did “not want to make any decisions based on the evidence … but rather relies solely upon her feelings.”

But the juror told the judge that while she was willing to follow the law she was entitled to what she felt. “I’m not agreeing with what some of the others are saying, and they’re holding that against me… . We all have our opinions,” the Herald said the juror told Judge Lenard. She also informed the judge that most of the jurors had tried to get her to change her mind, one of them threatening to come over to her table and standing up as if to do so.

One of the groups here that has spoken out against the frame-up of the Liberty City Six is Veye Yo, a Haitian rights organization. Tony Jeanthenor, a leader of Veye Yo, told the Militant, “The FBI framed these people. It has nothing to do with truth or justice. They [Liberty City Six] are mostly Haitians and have different beliefs than a lot of people so the government thought they could set them up.”

The May 17 Miami Herald editorial expressed dismay at the conviction saying, “If the expectations were that the FBI would monitor suspect groups, eavesdrop on their conversations, surveil their activities and stop them before they acted, this is not exactly what happened with the Liberty City group. The FBI used informants to infiltrate the group, and paid them $140,000 for their work… . They had no weapons, no plans and frequently asked the informants for money… . This wasn’t so much a case of the FBI interrupting an ongoing terror plot, but of the agency providing a blueprint for it.”

Lyglenson Lemorin, who was found innocent in the first trial, remains in federal detention in Georgia. Lemorin, 34, is a legal U.S. resident originally from Haiti and has lived in the United States since he was 11. He faces deportation on the same charges he was acquitted of.
 
 
Related articles:
White House uses ‘terror’ pretext to erode rights
N.Y.: Four entrapped by FBI, arrested on conspiracy charges
California inmate to appeal execution to high court
Hearing of Bay Area cop in killing of youth resumes
Defend our constitutional rights!  
 
 
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