Alabama Board of Pardons and Paroles: Free Political Prisoner Sekou Cinque T. M. Kambui(AKA William J. Turk #113058A)

Alabama Board of Pardons and Paroles: Free Political Prisoner Sekou Cinque T. M. Kambui(AKA William J. Turk #113058A)

Started
October 21, 2013
Petition to
Executive Director, Alabama Board of Pardons and Paroles Cynthia Dillard and
Victory
This petition made change with 433 supporters!

Why this petition matters

Started by Jennifer Murnan

We, the undersigned, call upon the Alabama Board of Pardons and Paroles to release: William J. Turk, #113058A, (known by us as Sekou Cinque T. M. Kambui) from prison in accord with mandatory provisions of the Alabama Board of pardons and parole statutes, governing parole decisions, or otherwise, Sekou should be afforded the same justice, the same equal treatment under color of law, the same equal right to be free as all those responsible for perpetrating the series of crime(s) perpetrated in exibits A-_....

Although he is due for a parole hearing in 2/2014, Sekou/William has already spent more than or nearly forty (40) years in prison for crimes he did not commit. After years of activism in the Civil/Human Rights Movement, Sekou was falsely accused of murdering two (2) white men in Alabama in 1975. Major witnesses in both cases admitted during this same investigation that they had been coerced into testifying falsely against Sekou, and repeatedly visited by certain members of the Tuscaloosa County/Jefferson County Sherriffs' Department at which time they were deliberately coached on what their testimony should be when they were called to give testimony against Sekou/William.

Defense witnesses in the first trial were so terrified after continuous threats against themselves and members of their families, and the racial intimidation perpetrated by the Tuscaloosa and Birmingham police departments for providing alibi testimony for Sekou/William that they were forced to flee Alabama, leaving Sekou without a defense for his second trial.

To this day Sekou has never been placed at or near either murder scene, no murder weapon was ever found, nor any direct evidence offered to connect Sekou to the murders. The pistol which he was captured with has never been conclusively linked to the crime: "except by innuendo."

As a youth in the 1950's and 60's, Sekou was involved in the Civil Rights Movement, and was a member of the Black Panther Party. He is recognized as a political prisoner by several international organizations. His activism also affiliated him with such organizations as Congress of Racial Equality, Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, Republic of New Afrika, and Southern Christian Leadership Conference.

In 1976, a Congressional Sub-Committee, popularly known as the "Church Committee" was formed to investigate and study the FBI's covert action programs. The Church Committee concluded that the FBI "conducted a sophisticated vigilante operation aimed squarely at preventing the exercise of First Amendment rights of speech and association, on the theory that preventing the growth of dangerous groups and the propagation of dangerous ideas would protect the national security and deter violence." The committee's factual findings revealed massive human rights violations against U.S. citizens based on race, political ideas, and political affiliations.

Today's political prisoners, prisoners of war, and exiles were Civil/Human Rights activists who became victims of the FBI counterintelligence program called COINTELPRO. COINTELPRO consisted of a series of covert actions directed against domestic dissident groups. In these programs, the Bureau went beyond the collection of intelligence to secret actions designed to "disrupt" and "neutralize" target groups and individuals.

These techniques were adopted wholesale from wartime counterintelligence techniques. It is indisputable that COINTELPRO was responsible for maiming, murders, false prosecutions and frame-ups, destruction, and mayhem throughout the country. It had infiltrated every organization and association that aspired to bring about social change in the United States. Organizations such as the Puerto Rican Independence movement, the Black Panter Party, the Young Lords, the Weather Underground, Students for a Democratic Society, the Republic of New Afrika, the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, and others, several of which Sekou Cinque T. M. Kambui / William J. Turk was affiliated with.

Sekou is a well-respected community leader and has consistently demonstrated an ability to lead a responsible and productive life. He is a paralegal professional and has been an active jailhouse lawyer and prisoners' Civil/Human rights activist for more than thirty (30) years in and out of prison (by proxy).

In a series of Supreme Court case(s), precedent has been clearly and long established that unless a parole statute contains [explicitly] MANDITORY LANGUAGE restricting the parole board's discretion in making its decision it may withhold release for any reason or no reason. (Additionally, in Greenholtz, a Nebraska statute provided that the Board of Parole "SHALL" release an inmate "UNLESS" it concludes that reasons require otherwise.) The court held that the mandatory nature of the language created and expectancy of release or "LIBERTY INTEREST" which was entitled to some constitutional protection. It has also been long and clearly established that Alabama parole statute(s) have been incorporated within Supreme Court precedent evincing that Alabama pardon and parole statute(s) creates an expectancy of release at 1/3 of an incarcerated person(s) sentence and/or ten (10) years of the same unless he/she is ineligible by law.

Sekou, under Alabama's own pardon and paroling statute(s), as by virtue of evidence that he has been falsely imprisoned, is deserving of his freedom. By our signature on this petition/letter we support a decision for his release.

Victory

This petition made change with 433 supporters!

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Decision Makers

  • Cynthia DillardExecutive Director, Alabama Board of Pardons and Paroles
  • Chairman Cliff Walker, Assoc. Members William W. Wynne Jr. and Robert P. LongshoreAlabama Board of Pardons and Paroles