THE MAKING OF AN AIRPLANE HIJACKER WRITTEN BY MUHAMMAD JALAL DEEN AKBAR

ASHANTI PUBLISHING GROUP is publishing the true life events of Muhammad Jalal Deen Akbar in “The Making of an Airplane Hijacker”. The article below was written by the Miami Herald. The Making of an Airplane Hijacker will be in bookstores in December. Reserve a copy at http://www.ashantipublishinggroup.com.

The Miami Herald

April 11, 1980.  p. 16.

 

Cuba May Let U.S. Hijacker Go to a Moslem Country

 

From Herald Staff and Wire Reports

HAVANA – The man who hijacked an American Airlines jet to Cuba said Thursday he acted to escape racial and religious persecution in the United States, the official Cuban news agency reported.

A Cuban government broadcast said the hijacker expressed a desire to leave Cuba for a Moslem country, and that he would be allowed to do so.

The news agency, Prensa Latina identified the gunman as Gerald Leland Merity, 35, originally of Minneapolis, and said he dropped out of dental school at the University of San Francisco last year.

The University of San Francisco has no dental school, but the University of California-San Francisco confirmed that a man by that name attended the university from the fall of 1997 until January 1980, when he dropped out.

Prensa Latina said Merity was a converted Moslem who uses the name Muhammad Jalal Deen Akbar.

 

IF HE is permitted to leave the island and go wherever he wants, it would mark the first time since hijackings to Cuba began more than a decade ago that Cuba hasn’t prosecuted the hijacker, the State Department said in Washington.

However, State Department officials said late Thursday that had received assurances from Havana that the hijacker would be prosecuted.

Michael Kozak, a legal affairs specialist for the State Department, noted that an executive agreement between the United States and Cuba requiring each country to prosecute hijackers lapsed in April 1977 at the Cuban government’s request.

Nevertheless, the Cubans have continued to abide by its terms, Kozak said, although their motive in doing so may be less to cooperate with the United States than to discourage air piracy.

“Cuba didn’t want to become a haven for crazies,” Kozak said.

 

STATE DEPARTMENT sources said that if this latest hijacker is released, it could be seen as an attempt by Cuba to “tweak us.”

Cuban President Fidel Castro has been complaining for years that it appears unfair that he prosecutes hijackers while the United States has never been able to successfully prosecute a Cuban boat hijacker.

“But in this case,” one State Department official said, “it could just be his way of showing to the world that there are people who want to come into Cuba just as much as there are people who want to get out.”

Prensa Latina quoted Merity as saying “In the United States, slavery formally ended a little more than 100 years ago, but it continues informally. Until a short time ago, we blacks had to struggle against the Ku Klux Klan, but now we have to do it against the police that accost us, and against the Nazi Party.”

An FBI source in Miami said that aboard the Boeing 727 during the 10-hour hijacking from Ontario, Calif., to Havana on Wednesday, the grimy-clad gunman “behaved more like a criminal fugitive than a political fugitive.”

“Political terrorists generally are verbose and spend the time telling their hostages of their resentment and their reason for their action,” the source said. “This man said nothing at all.”

The FBI prepared composite sketches of the hijacker in an effort to identify him.

 

THE GUNMAN leaped a fence at Ontario International Airport near Los Angeles on Wednesday morning. He entered the door of the plane being readied for a flight to Chicago, held a .45-caliber pistol to the head of a flight attendant and demanded to be taken to Havana.

The plane and its crew of seven made a refueling stop at Dallas-Fort Worth Airport and then flew directly to Havana’s Jose Marti Airport. The plane was allowed to return to Miami Wednesday night.

It was the second hijacking to Cuba this year. On Jan. 25, a Delta Airlines plane from Atlanta was forced to fly to Havana by a man later identified as Samuel Alden Ingram. Ingram remains in Cuba.

 

This article was compiled from reports by Tom Fiedler of The Herald’s Washington bureau and by United Press International.

 

PEOPLE INCARCERATED ON NON-VIOLENT DRUG CHARGES ARE A BIT CLOSER TO GETTING OUT OF FEDERAL PRISON YEARS EARLY. CLEMENCY IS NOW ON THE TABLE FOR SOME DRUG OFFENDERS

Deputy Attorney General James Cole announced that the department would broaden the criteria for clemency, a move that is expected to lead to thousands of prisoners — most serving drug sentences — filing applications to President Barack Obama seeking to commute their sentences.

The changes are part of a broader effort by the Obama administration to modify sentencing laws, allowing for use of rehabilitation and other alternatives to deal with non-violent drug offenders and those who previously faced tough mandatory minimum sentences.

Attorney General Eric Holder previewed some of the changes Monday by announcing plans to assign more lawyers to handle an anticipated flood of clemency requests.

Clemency changes to free drug offenders

Obama commutes 8 crack cocaine cases

Obama commutes 8 crack sentences

Crack cocaine at heart of once-common sentencing disparity

“We are launching this clemency initiative in order to quickly and effectively identify appropriate candidates, candidates who have a clean prison record, do not present a threat to public safety, and were sentenced under out-of-date laws that have since been changed, and are no longer seen as appropriate,” Cole said at a news conference.

The clemency changes would be open to prisoners who have met a set of specific conditions: they must be low-level, non-violent offenders without a significant criminal history and must be serving a federal sentence that would likely be shorter if they were convicted today. They must have served at least 10 years of their sentence and have demonstrated good conduct in prison, with no history of violence before or during their prison term.

The pending changes are the latest step in an ongoing effort Holder calls “Smart on Crime,” which also seeks to remedy the once-common wide disparity in sentences handed down over powder versus crack cocaine, based on guidelines first enacted by Congress more than 25 years ago.

Earlier: Eric Holder seeks to cut mandatory minimum drug sentences

Of the more than 200,000 inmates in the federal prison system, some estimates show the new clemency criteria could apply to about 2,000 prisoners. But the number is likely to fall to perhaps hundreds after government lawyers review the applications.

The Justice Department says it doesn’t know how many people will end up qualifying because it depends on the applications and how they fit the new criteria. The President has final authority to decide who gets clemency.

Obama has been criticized by some civil rights groups for being stingy with his pardons and commutations. But many praised the Justice Department’s decision as a good initial step, including a coalition of groups working on sentencing guidelines.

The announcement “marks the beginning of the end of the age of mass incarceration,” said Jerry Cox, president of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. “We must seize this historic opportunity to start the process of remedying decades of cruel and unnecessarily harsh sentencing policies.”

Cole also announced the appointment of Deborah Leff to lead the department’s Office of the Pardon Attorney, which has come under fire for being slow to review a backlog of applications.

Cole said the department was setting up an online application system and working with pro-bono attorneys who will assist prisoners in their applications.

Mary Price, general counsel for the group Families Against Mandatory Minimums, which advocates for changes to drug sentencing laws, welcomed Cole’s announcement. “The doors of the Office of the Pardon Attorney have been closed to petitioners for too long. This announcement signals a truly welcome change; the culture of ‘no’ that has dominated that office is being transformed,” she said.

The push to relax sentencing laws has the support of some conservative Republican lawmakers, who believe it is a way to reduce spending on federal prisons and to use alternatives to incarceration to deal with drug problems. However, lawmakers want the changes to be made through Congress rather than through the president’s executive power.

“I hope President Obama is not seeking to change sentencing policy unilaterally. Congress, not the President, has authority to make sentencing policy. He should continue to work with Congress rather than once again going it alone, and I’m willing to work with the President on these issues.” Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, said this week.

Cole, in his remarks Wednesday, said the issue is one of fairness. “Older, stringent punishments that are out of line with sentences imposed under today’s laws erode people’s confidence in our criminal justice system, and I am confident that this initiative will go far to promote the most fundamental of American ideals — equal justice under law,” Cole said.

Three years ago, Obama signed the Fair Sentencing Act to address the larger issue of drug sentencing disparities. Sentencing guidelines provided for a 100-to-1 ratio between the penalties for crack cocaine offenses versus those for powdered cocaine, but the fair sentencing law reduced the disparity to 18-to-1.

 

The U.S. Sentencing Commission recently voted to apply reduced drug penalties retroactively to over 46,000 people serving excessive sentences for federal drug offenses — potentially reducing average prison terms by two years.

The vote reflects a historic shift in the nation’s approach to substance abuse. There’s an emerging consensus among both Republicans and Democrats that using the criminal justice system to address substance abuse is both too expensive and doesn’t work in terms of promoting public safety.  Policymakers of both parties are increasingly recognizing that the war on drugs has come at a ruinous cost for all Americans, but particularly for communities of color.

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