On the first day of his murder trial, Muslim spiritual leader Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin sat solemn-faced Tuesday as a sheriff’s deputy stood on the witness stand and pointed to him as the man who killed his partner in a shootout two years ago.
Dressed in a long white robe and sandals, his hair straightened and dyed reddish brown, Al-Amin was a stark contrast with the man he used to be–the firebrand H. Rap Brown, a leader of the Black Panther Party whose signature Afro, sunglasses and black beret made him an icon in the 1960s.
Al-Amin, 58, insists he is now a different person, a cleric who is all about peace rather than violence.
Delayed five months after terrorist attacks, it is the country’s first criminal trial involving a high-profile Muslim since Sept. 11, and some observers see it as a litmus test of the nation’s religious and racial tolerance.
“The community is very concerned about whether Muslims can get a fair trial that is not prejudiced by the horrific events of Sept. 11,” said Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations in Washington. “It is very important that this case be decided on due process and facts rather than prejudicial statements, guilt by association or anti-Muslim stereotypes.”
Attorneys took six weeks to select a jury, settling on an overwhelmingly young panel of six black men, three black women, two white women and one Hispanic woman. They will be sequestered during the trial, which could last up to five weeks.
Though Fulton County Superior Court Judge Stephanie Manis acknowledged the jury appeared “skewed” racially, she said there was nothing illegal about the selection.
In her opening statement, prosecutor Kellie Stevens provided a vivid description of the night Deputy Richard Kinchen lay dying on the street after he and his partner went to Al-Amin’s small grocery story in Atlanta’s West End to arrest him on March 16, 2000. She said Al-Amin opened fire with an assault rifle and when it was empty, he got a pistol from his car and fired on Kinchen again.
“He took the 9 mm and he pumped three more shots in Deputy Kinchen, between his legs,” Stevens said.
As family members sat quietly in the second row, she told how Deputy Aldranon English ran for cover in a nearby field, his gun disabled, and begged for his life. “Please, don’t shoot me,” she said he pleaded.
An often-emotional English, 30, later testified that he and Kinchen were attempting to serve an arrest warrant on Al-Amin for failing to appear in court on a minor charge. He said he did not realize who Al-Amin was and did not initially feel threatened because he was dressed in Muslim garb.
“As I got close to him, I told him to show me his right hand,” English testified. “He said `yep,’ and he frowned and swung up an assault rifle and started shooting.” English said he was hit four times and he dived between the cars and returned fire. He identified Al-Amin out of a photo lineup the next day.
Defense attorneys insist Al-Amin was in a nearby mosque at the time of the shooting and that English was confused because he was heavily medicated and in the hospital when he made the identification. Initially, defense attorney Jack Martin said, English described the suspect as having gray eyes. Al-Amin’s eyes are brown. English also said early on that the suspect had been wounded in the gun battle.
In his opening statement, Martin said the defense will paint a picture of mistaken identity, backed up by witnesses who described a different scene that night, and poor police work.
“They closed the case on March 28, less than two weeks after the shooting,” Martin said. “When they closed the case, they closed their eyes, they closed their ears, they closed their minds. Now it is time to take off the blinders.”
The biggest challenge for the defense, however, is explaining why Al-Amin fled to rural Alabama where he was arrested four days after the shooting. His bullet-riddled car was found in a friend’s yard, its license plates removed and a slug stuck in the windshield.
Martin implied that all of it was planted. As Al-Amin lay on the ground during his arrest, the attorney said, an FBI agent kicked him and spit on him, saying, “This is what we do to cop killers.”
“Those suspicious elements are what you should consider,” Martin told jurors.
Muslims from around the country, as well as supporters from the West End neighborhood, filled the small courtroom to show their support for a man they insist has done much to turn the neighborhood around. They described Al-Amin, who bowed his head in prayer and cupped his hands at his heart several times during the trial, as an unselfish individual who for decades has been the victim of a government conspiracy.
