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After 28 Years in Prison, Man Falsely Convicted in Botched Investigation to Walk Free
A Denver, Colorado, man has spent 28 years in prison based on a dream—and it wasn’t his. Now he could soon be free. In 1989, Clarence Moses-EL, who is African-American, was sentenced to 48 years in prison after a woman said she dreamed he was the man who raped and beat her in the dark. The victim said she was raped in her apartment after a night out drinking at a party. She was beaten so badly during the attack that she suffered broken facial bones and lost the use of one eye. Initially, the victim named three men she had been drinking with as her possible attackers—none of them was Clarence Moses-EL. But police never investigated any of those men, because, a day and a half later, the victim said she had a dream that Moses-EL was the one who raped her. Moses-EL has always maintained his innocence. But the police threw out a rape kit and any possible evidence, like bed sheets and her clothes. This summer, another man confessed to the attack, yet Moses-EL remained in prison. Now a judge has lifted his conviction, but Moses-EL still remains in jail. He could be freed as early as Tuesday, when a bond hearing has been set. The District Attorney’s Office has not yet said if they will attempt to retry him for the crime. We speak with Colorado Independent editor Susan Greene, who has long covered the story, and with Moses-EL’s attorney, Gail Johnson.
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: We turn now to the case of a Denver, Colorado, man who has spent 28 years in prison based on a dream—and it wasn’t his own. That’s right. In 1989, Clarence Moses-EL, who is African-American, was sentenced to 48 years in prison after a woman said she dreamed he was the man who raped and beat her in the dark. The victim said she was raped in her apartment after a night out drinking at a party. She was beaten so badly during the attack that she suffered broken facial bones and lost the use of one eye. Initially, the victim named three men she had been drinking with as her possible attackers—none of them was Clarence Moses-EL. But police never investigated any of those men, because, a day and a half later, the victim said she had a dream that Moses-EL was the one who had raped her.
AMY GOODMAN: Since day one, Clarence Moses-EL has maintained his innocence. In 1995, he won a court order to analyze evidence that could have proved his innocence. He persuaded his fellow prisoners to chip in a thousand dollars to pay for DNA testing. Denver police packaged the evidence, which included the victim’s rape kit, her clothes and bed sheets in a box, and marked it, "DO NOT DESTROY." But then, the police threw the box in a dumpster.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: The story doesn’t end there. One of three people the victim initially listed as a possible attacker was a man named L.C. Jackson. In 2012, Jackson sent Clarence Moses-EL a letter in prison that read in part, quote, "Let’s start by bringing what was done in the dark into the light." In court this past summer, Jackson confessed to the attack, admitting that he had what he claimed was consensual sex with the victim and beat her that night in her apartment. Jackson’s then live-in girlfriend corroborated his testimony, saying he left their house during the time of the attack, and blood evidence pointed to someone with Jackson’s blood type, not Moses-EL’s. Yet Clarence Moses-EL has remained in prison, and Denver District Attorney Mitchell Morrissey has fought for years to uphold his conviction.
AMY GOODMAN: During the 28 years Moses-EL has fought for his freedom, a number of his family members have passed away, including his mother, who died in 2013. He has 12 grandchildren whom he has never met, because he doesn’t want them to see him behind bars.
Well, on Monday, Clarence Moses-EL finally won a major victory, when a judge lifted his conviction. He could be freed as early as this next Tuesday, when a bond hearing has been set. The District Attorney’s Office has not yet said if they will attempt to retry him for the crime.
For more on this case, we’re joined by Susan Greene, editor of The Colorado Independent, who has reported on Clarence Moses-EL’s case for years. Gail Johnson is Moses-EL’s defense attorney. And we also will also hear from Lynn Kimbrough, spokesperson for the Denver District Attorney’s Office.
Let us start with Susan. How did you learn of this story? You have championed this case for years in your reporting.
SUSAN GREENE: I used to work at The Denver Post, Amy, and we worked for a year on a series called "Trashing the Truth," which was about the loss and destruction of DNA evidence. It was a national series of stories about what happens when these tiny parcels of biological evidence go lost or missing. And Clarence’s case was the story we started the week-long series with, because it was so flagrant, with the—so much DNA evidence being right there, Clarence having raised the money in prison to test it. And the police, despite the fact that it was in a box marked "DO NOT DESTROY" and he had two court orders to have it tested, threw it in a dumpster. So, that’s how I got to know Clarence about nine or 10 years ago.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And was anyone ever held responsible or discovered who decided to throw out that kit, that evidence?
SUSAN GREENE: Nobody ultimately was held responsible. There was a slight investigation, and it was deemed that there was a lack of communication between the DA’s Office and the police department, that the DA’s Office didn’t notify the police department that there were two court orders to test the DNA. Now, how that explains how someone could physically take a box marked "DO NOT DESTROY" in magic marker and throw it in the dumpster, I don’t know.
AMY GOODMAN: Gail Johnson, you’re the defense attorney for Clarence Moses-EL. Can you explain how 28 years ago, in this trial, a woman who was clearly a victim of a rape and a brutal assault could say that the only—the only evidence they had was this dream that she had? And based on a dream—she had actually named people she thought might have been her attackers, and they weren’t Moses-EL. But based on this dream, he was convicted?
GAIL JOHNSON: That’s correct, Amy. And, you know, what decades of experience now in this country with exonerations and wrongful convictions research has shown is that eyewitness misidentifications are a major cause of wrongful convictions. And that’s what happened in this case.
AMY GOODMAN: How was this eyewitness? It’s a dream.
GAIL JOHNSON: It’s an eyewitness in the sense that she’s the only person who’s identified him, because she now claims, and claimed at trial, that he was her attacker. But there are lots of reasons to doubt the reliability of that. We’re not saying this was malicious on her part, but certainly she was heavily intoxicated, so much so that she had passed out before the attack and vomited. She had been drinking malt liquor that night with L.C. Jackson and others. She also had very poor eyesight. It was dark when she was attacked. And the attacker beat her about the face, which was quite traumatic.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And you mentioned L.C. Jackson. When he then sent this letter to your client in prison, what was—what was then the reaction in terms of the criminal justice system and the courts?
GAIL JOHNSON: Well, it’s an excellent question, Juan. Mr. Moses-EL filed a motion for a new trial based on newly discovered evidence—namely, that L.C. Jackson was now admitting his involvement in these events. The Denver District Attorney’s Office did not go out and talk to Mr. Jackson about those statements for 18 months after those admissions became public. So, the system was slow to respond. But ultimately, as Amy explained, we now have a major breakthrough in the case. Mr. Jackson has testified in court, under oath, before a Denver district judge, about his involvement. He has admitted, under oath, that he went to the victim’s home at the time of the attack, that he had sexual intercourse with her, that he physically assaulted her.
AMY GOODMAN: On Thursday, Democracy Now! spoke to Denver district attorney spokesperson Lynn Kimbrough. We asked her if the Denver DA is seeking a new trial for Clarence Moses-EL.
LYNN KIMBROUGH: The decision on whether or not to seek a new trial has not been made. The district attorney will review the court’s ruling in its entirety, from a legal perspective. And in addition to conducting a review of the decision, he’ll also be meeting with the victim. And both of those things will take place before he makes a decision.
AMY GOODMAN: So, can you tell us what has been the position of the Denver district attorney?
GAIL JOHNSON: Well, so far, the Denver District Attorney’s Office has been fighting Mr. Moses-EL’s attempts to vindicate his innocence at every turn, including fighting our access to some documents that—from Mr. Jackson’s sex assault case. And I think one of the important things for your listeners to understand today is that this Denver District Attorney’s Office prosecuted Mr. Jackson years later on what’s known on as a cold hit DNA case for the brutal sexual assault of a woman and her nine-year-old daughter in their home that occurred about a mile, mile and a half from the events underlying Mr. Moses-EL’s case. There are some striking similarities between the manner in which those assaults were committed and, again, the assault in the 1987 case for which Mr. Moses-EL has been incarcerated for 28 years. So when you put together Mr. Jackson’s history, criminal history, as well as his admissions, as well as—we presented evidence that—from his girlfriend at the time of the assault, who said he left the house right after—about 20 minutes after the victim—she lived two doors down—and that he was gone for an hour or two, and then he returned to her presence, and then, about 20 minutes later, they learned about the assaults that had happened. So, he was gone at the exact moment of the assaults.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Susan Greene, I’d like to ask you, since you’ve been following this story for so many years, one, what’s been the reaction of the other media in Denver, in Colorado, to this story? And why do think the district attorney has been so intransigent on this case?
SUSAN GREENE: The reaction by other media really has been to ignore this case for years. I wrote about it at The Denver Post; when I left The Denver Post, I continued writing about it. I’m now with The Colorado Independent. But when I left, The Denver Post and all other media have ignored this case. Nobody went to the hearing. Nobody’s done any investigative work on it at all. And I think that’s largely because there has been so much misinformation put out by the DA’s Office. This is a DA who, in this case, has simply made stuff up, ad hominem. And we have a media market here that just doesn’t have the kind of investigative journalism resources to dig in. And not only that, we have a media here that is cowed by the powers that be here so much that Mitch Morrissey will dish out facts about this—not facts about this case, misinformation about this case, and the media will buy it. And so, this is not just a problem in the DA system, it’s a problem systemwide. And it’s why journalism is so important.
AMY GOODMAN: Just let me ask you, back in 2012, three years ago, L.C. Jackson wrote this letter to Clarence Moses-EL in prison, and it read, quote, "I really don’t know what to say to you. But let’s start by bringing what was done in the dark into the light. I have a lot on my heart. I don’t know who['s] working on this. But have them come up and see me. It's time. I’ll be waiting." That’s what Jackson wrote to Moses-EL. That was in 2012. What happened as a result of that letter, Susan Greene?
SUSAN GREENE: What happened is, Clarence, from prison, who really has been just kind of silently in prison, for the most part, for 28 years, tried to get a new hearing. And it took, I think, about three years for that process to move forward. You would think—and the DA was made aware of that letter fairly early on, so you would think, because a DA’s responsibility is to seek the truth and to fact find and to make sure, if there’s new evidence, it’s looked at. But that’s actually not the case. The DA ignored this new evidence. Not only did it ignore the new evidence, that office, but it kept maintaining, incorrectly, as Mitch Morrissey has done for at least 10 years now, that the victim never named L.C. Jackson in her outcry. And that’s incorrect. He has testified to that in the Legislature, he has said that in press releases, he’s said that in videos. And again, this goes back to the media. People buy it. What the documents show, the police reports show and the court records show is, in fact, the victim several times named L.C. Jackson in her outcry. She never named Clarence Moses-EL in her outcry.
What it also—what nobody else has really talked about is that the lead detective in the case in the Denver Police Department said before he died, he always had reservations about this case. And the reason he had reservations is because the victim, before she was attacked—and she was brutally attacked, Amy—had had a fight with Moses-EL’s wife and had said publicly, "I’m going to get back at you." And so, this detective had concerns that it was a personal vendetta that made—that prompted the victim to have this so-called dream, that is, as Gail said, the only evidence on which Clarence was convicted.
AMY GOODMAN: Where is Clarence Moses-EL right now?
SUSAN GREENE: He is in a prison called Territorial in Colorado. He has lived for many, many years in the Bent County Correctional Facility, which is hours away from Denver. He was transferred yesterday, on his way to Denver, to bond out, but didn’t make it here because, I guess, he needed to transfer from prisons. It’s like a terrible, never-ending bus ride. So he’s in Territorial, and hopefully he’s on his way to Denver today, hopefully, if the DA doesn’t continue fighting it, to bond out.
AMY GOODMAN: Gail Johnson, do you think Clarence Moses-EL will be home for Christmas?
GAIL JOHNSON: I do, Amy. There’s been an incredible outpouring of support for Mr. Moses-EL and his situation and his plight. And our hope is that a reasonable bond will be set and he will be able to make that and be home for Christmas.
AMY GOODMAN: We thank you both for being with us, Gail Johnson, defense attorney for Clarence Moses-EL, and Susan Greene, editor of The Colorado Independent. We’ll link to your pieces on Clarence Moses-EL.
This is Democracy Now! When we come back, we’ll talk about Yemen. Stay with us.
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Ceasefire in Yemen Faces Collapse as U.S. Continues Weapons Sales to Saudi Arabia, Fueling Civil War
United Nations-brokered peace talks in Yemen’s nine-month-old civil war are faltering, amid disputes between rival factions over the release of prisoners. Meanwhile, local officials have reported intensifying clashes and renewed airstrikes despite an ongoing ceasefire. Over the weekend, U.S.-backed, Saudi-led airstrikes killed 19 Yemeni civilians in their homes and at a market. About half of the nearly 6,000 people killed in Yemen’s conflict are civilians, including more than 600 children. Rima Kamal of the International Committee for the Red Cross in Yemen warned of a deepening humanitarian crisis. The United States has bolstered the Saudi-led coalition’s airstrikes in Yemen through arms sales and direct military support. Saudi Arabia is one of the U.S. arms industry’s biggest customers. Last month, the State Department approved a billion-dollar deal to restock Saudi Arabia’s air force arsenal, which was depleted by its bombing campaign in Yemen. The sale included thousands of air-to-ground munitions and "general purpose" bombs. The United States and other countries have also reportedly sold internationally banned cluster munitions to Saudi Arabia that are now being used in Yemen. We speak with reporter Sharif Abdel Kouddous, who has just returned from Yemen. His recent piece for GlobalPost is "With US help, Saudi Arabia is obliterating Yemen."
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: We turn now to Yemen, where U.N.-brokered peace talks in the country’s nine-month-old civil war are faltering amid disputes between rival factions over the release of prisoners. Meanwhile, local officials have reported intensifying clashes and renewed airstrikes despite an ongoing ceasefire. Over the weekend, airstrikes by the Saudi-led coalition that’s backed by the U.S. killed 19 Yemeni civilians in their homes and at a market. About half of the nearly 6,000 people killed in Yemen’s conflict are civilians, including more than 600 children. Rima Kamal of the International Committee for the Red Cross in Yemen warned of a deepening humanitarian crisis.
RIMA KAMAL: The overall humanitarian situation in Yemen is nothing short of catastrophic. On average, you have 25 people killed in Yemen every day and another 125 that are injured. This has been ongoing for more than eight months by now. The civilian population is suffering on multiple fronts. You have ongoing airstrikes. You have heavy ground fighting. And then you have, on top of that, restrictions on the movement of goods and services.
AMY GOODMAN: The United States has bolstered the Saudi-led coalition’s airstrikes in Yemen through arms sales and direct military support. Saudi Arabia is one of the U.S. arms industry’s biggest customers. Last month, the State Department approved a billion-dollar deal to restock Saudi Arabia’s air force arsenal, which was depleted by its bombing campaign in Yemen. The sale included thousands of air-to-ground munitions and general-purpose bombs. The U.S. and other countries have also reportedly sold internationally banned cluster munitions to Saudi Arabia that are now being used in Yemen.
For more, we’re joined by Sharif Abdel Kouddous, who has just returned from Yemen. He’s a Democracy Now! correspondent, a fellow at The Nation Institute. And he’s recently written a piece for the GlobalPost called "With US help, Saudi Arabia is obliterating Yemen." It’s the first of a two-part series on Yemen.
Sharif, start off by just explaining what you found in your weeks-long trip there.
SHARIF ABDEL KOUDDOUS: Well, I spent most of the time in the Houthi-controlled north of Yemen, and this is an area that’s been pounded relentlessly for the past nine months with near-daily airstrikes. You can’t visit a city or a town in Yemen without seeing the destruction on the ground. Everything has been hit, from homes to schools, restaurants, bridges, roads, a lot of civilian infrastructure. And with that, of course, comes a lot of the suffering. You know, all parties in this conflict have committed—are guilty of killing civilians. And the Houthi rebels and their allies are implicated in the deaths of hundreds of civilians, mostly by indiscriminate shelling, using landmines, snipers and so forth. But according to the United Nations itself, the majority of civilians killed in this conflict have died as a result of airstrikes. A study in September found that 60 percent have died from these bombardments.
One of the cases that I looked at was the bombing of a wedding in an area called Sanaban, which is a village just south of the capital. This was October 7th, and three brothers were getting married from the same village on the same night. And they—you know, when the wedding was at its peak, you know, the brides had just arrived in a large convoy. Most of the women and children were inside the house. The men were outside in these tents erected outside. The missile smashed into the house, destroying about half of it and setting most of the rest of it on fire. Women were jumping out of the building. And 43 people were killed in the attack, including 16 children. I spoke to one of the surviving grooms, Ayman al-Sanabani. And he—you know, he was hardly even able to fathom what had happened to him. His bride had died, 18 years old, his mother, his father, his younger sister and his younger brother, another one of the grooms. And many people were injured in the attack, very badly burned. One of them is named Abdullah al-Sanabani. He’s a child prodigy who won in 2012 a competition and a visit to NASA and gave a TED talk. He now lies in a hospital in Boston. His right arm has been amputated above the elbow, and two of his toes have been removed. So, this is just one of many cases that you see across Yemen, and it’s happening while much of the world is really looking the other way. No one really is paying attention to Yemen. It doesn’t get much attention in the media. And people, when you talk to them, they say, "Why has the world forsaken us?"
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Sharif, what about this Saudi-led coalition? Who’s in it? And what level of the bombing? Are we talking here on a daily basis that the bombings are occurring?
SHARIF ABDEL KOUDDOUS: Yeah, I would say—I mean, it’s very hard to get an accurate count, but certainly almost every single day bombs are raining down from across—across Yemen. Apart from sporadic drone strikes by the U.S., Saudi Arabia and the coalition is the only air power above Yemen. This is a coalition made up of mostly Gulf countries, led by Saudi Arabia. The United Arab Emirates is also very heavily involved. And they have been bombing since March 26 on Yemen.
What I think people also need to understand is the level of U.S. complicity in this war. So, as you mentioned at the top, you know, Saudi Arabia is the most avid customer of U.S. weapons and has bought to the tune of $90 billion over the past five years U.S. arms. What I think many people don’t realize is that the United States is also providing crucial intelligence, logistics, targeting assistance, support to the Saudi coalition, provides vital aerial refueling almost every day, with two sorties from tankers almost every day. And there’s something called a joint combined planning cell, which is based in Riyadh—this was approved by President Obama—where you have U.S. military personnel meeting on a daily basis with Saudi military leadership, helping to coordinate this war. And so, human rights workers that I talked to said that, you know, the United States is not just a backer of this war, but they are a party to this armed conflict. And that’s what people have to understand, is that the United States government is complicit in what is happening in Yemen.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, in essence, that Yemen has become another growth market for the American arms industry, right? Because the more bombs and more missiles that are dropped, the more that have to be sold—
SHARIF ABDEL KOUDDOUS: Absolutely.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: —to Saudi Arabia to replace them.
SHARIF ABDEL KOUDDOUS: This $1.29 billion deal that was just approved by the State Department last month is to replenish these laser-guided munitions, these smart bombs—so-called smart bombs. And so, this is—
AMY GOODMAN: These are some of the largest U.S. military deals in history.
SHARIF ABDEL KOUDDOUS: Right. And this is the—
AMY GOODMAN: With Saudi Arabia.
SHARIF ABDEL KOUDDOUS: You know, Yemen is by far the poorest country in the region, and it’s being bombed by the richest.
AMY GOODMAN: Last week, a journalist asked State Department spokesperson John Kirby if the U.S. will support the Yemen ceasefire.
JOHN KIRBY: Yeah?
REPORTER: I have a last question, on Yemen. Yemen’s president, Hadi, has asked the Saudi Arabia-led coalition to begin a seven-day ceasefire starting December 15th. You are a part of the coalition. Will you support this ceasefire?
JOHN KIRBY: We welcome the—we welcome the reports of this proposal. And obviously we have to—we have to see how this plays out. But we welcome the reports of the proposal.
AMY GOODMAN: That was John Kirby, State Department spokesperson. Sharif?
SHARIF ABDEL KOUDDOUS: Well, you know, as you heard, a very tepid response. And the U.S. repeatedly says, you know, "We call on Saudi Arabia to investigate any airstrike where civilians have died," but there’s been no investigations done so far. And, you know, a lot of—another case that I looked at was also the bombing of a hospital, and this has happened many times in Yemen. Six hundred hospitals have, or health facilities, have been forced to close from either being hit or from lack of supplies and fuel. But this was a hospital in Haidan, which is a northern town near the Saudi border. It was supported by Doctors Without Borders, the international medical organization. They regularly provided the GPS coordinates to the Saudi coalition. The MSF logo was on the roof of the building. And in late October—and Haidan is a town that’s been really devastated. I mean, everything has been destroyed in the town—schools, a water project. The main road is completely rubble. So this is the one place of sanctuary for people, and it was hit at night while doctors were sleeping in the back or sitting down for dinner. Luckily, no one was killed in the attack, but the place has been completely destroyed, and this will definitely have fatal consequences. It served over 200,000 people in a very remote area, and now people—doctors there who work there said that people will die because of lack of access to healthcare.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Sharif, what’s the potential here for any kind of a political settlement? I mean, there’s the ceasefire that’s been announced—
SHARIF ABDEL KOUDDOUS: Right.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: —between the warring—the factions in the civil war.
SHARIF ABDEL KOUDDOUS: I mean, it’s very tenuous. The stated goal of the Saudi coalition is to reinstate the—what they say is the legitimate president, Hadi. He has very, very little support on the ground in Yemen, and I think most observers would agree this is an unrealistic goal to achieve. One of the problems is the array of groups, different groups, that are fighting now each other in Yemen. They’re not all represented at these talks. You have Salafi groups that are fighting. You have southern secessionist groups. And they’re not—they don’t all have the same goals and the same grievances. And so, really what’s been happening in Yemen for the past year is threatening to really tear the country completely apart and bring it to a state where we’ve seen—
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: So it’s more like—it’s more like Libya right now.
SHARIF ABDEL KOUDDOUS: Right, countries like Libya and Syria, which have completely fallen apart. And Yemen is right there on the brink of that. And part of the problem also is a massive, massive humanitarian crisis. As I said, Yemen is the poorest country in the region. This is a place where people were struggling to survive before the conflict. It imports 90 percent of its food and fuel. And now 21 million people are in need of humanitarian aid. I mean, if you think about that number, that’s more than double—or just under double the number of people who need aid in Syria.
You have just skyrocketing levels of malnutrition. Three million people have been added to the ranks of the hungry. And there’s been millions of people displaced, as well. I went to one camp where, you know, people were living on this sunwashed hill on these rocks, in these tents. They had no money even to buy wood to make fire to bake their bread. And so the children would go out and scavenge for plastic bottles. And they would pile them in the camp, and they’d burn the plastic bottles to make the fire to make this bread, and this toxic ooze would sludge out the bottom. And I said, "Don’t you know this is very bad for you?" And they said, "Yes, but otherwise we’ll starve. So this is the only way we can eat." Many of them are surviving on just bread and tea. They beg in the streets.
So it’s a very, very dire situation. And the most basic of needs in Yemen are not there—food, water, shelter, healthcare. There’s hardly any electricity anywhere. So, at night, it’s like going back in time. You know, you’re wading through darkness, mostly, in Yemen, people walking with flashlights and headlamps. It’s becoming one of the greener places, because people are—those who can afford it are buying solar panels. Yemenis are becoming experts in wattage and knowing how to store a battery and things like that. But it’s a very dire situation. Like I said, it’s not getting the kind of attention that it needs.
AMY GOODMAN: I want to go back to Saudi Arabia’s role. The foreign minister, Adel al-Jubeir, speaking on CBS News in September, was asked about the efficacy and accuracy of Saudi airstrikes in Yemen.
ADEL AL-JUBEIR: We are very careful in picking targets. We have very precise weapons. We work with our allies, including the United States, on these targets. We do damage assessments of these targets after they’re hit.
AMY GOODMAN: So that was the Saudi foreign minister. "We are very careful" in our targets. Sharif Abdel Kouddous?
SHARIF ABDEL KOUDDOUS: Well, he should then answer for the thousands of civilians that have been killed by his bombs, by the bombs that are coming down. I mean, it’s shocking that there isn’t enough—that the U.S. is not putting more pressure, that the United States is not doing its own investigations, given its conduct in the war.
And, I mean, when I was talking about the humanitarian situation, Saudi Arabia and the coalition have imposed a blockade, a siege, on Yemen—this country that is in desperate need for its basic goods. This comes under the rubric of a Security Council resolution to—an arms embargo on the Houthi leadership. But, for example, in September, 1 percent of Yemen’s fuel needs entered the country. Fuel affects everything—access for food delivery, electricity. So, Yemenis are slowly being strangled to death.
And there’s also—both sides are using aide as a weapon. So, in Taiz, which is a city that—it’s Yemen’s third-largest city. It’s under siege by the Houthis, who are waging a ground battle there. They have really blocked it off, to the extent that people, individuals walking in carrying a bag of groceries, they take the groceries away from them. They take, if they’re found to be carrying any medicine or anything like that. So both sides are complicit here, and Yemeni civilians are suffering.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And I wanted to ask you, what’s the attitude of the Egyptian government to all of this—I mean, Egypt still being the largest country in the Arab world—to this conflict not very far from their borders?
SHARIF ABDEL KOUDDOUS: Well, Egypt is part of this coalition. You know, the government of Abdel Fattah el-Sisi is very close to the Saudi Arabian government, which has provided and helped prop up his government with billions of dollars in aid. And so, you know, their policy very closely mirrors Saudi Arabia’s. It’s hasn’t been—sent any troops directly on the ground, but they are part of the coalition.
AMY GOODMAN: Meanwhile, this Committee for Protection of Journalists said that Egypt has now become the second-deadliest place for journalists in the world. Cairo is where you live, Sharif.
SHARIF ABDEL KOUDDOUS: Not deadliest, most dangerous.
AMY GOODMAN: Most dangerous.
SHARIF ABDEL KOUDDOUS: So it’s the second-worst jailer of journalists in the world after China. It’s probably the most rapid deterioration in press freedom in the world. So there’s 23, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists, reporters who are behind bars. Among them is Mahmoud Abou Zeid, a photojournalist known as Shawkan, who was held for over two years without seeing a judge, which violates even Egypt’s own penal code. You have another journalist called Ismail al-Iskandarani, who just arrived back. He knew that he was in danger—
AMY GOODMAN: Ten seconds.
SHARIF ABDEL KOUDDOUS: —if he was going to go back to Egypt, but he had to see his sick mother. He was taken at the airport and is in prison now. So this is the situation that we’re living in.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, Sharif, I want you to be very careful when you go back home to Cairo. Sharif Abdel Kouddous, a Democracy Now! correspondent, fellow at The Nation. His recent piece is for the GlobalPost, and we’ll link to it. It’s called "With US help, Saudi Arabia is obliterating Yemen." It’s first of a two-part series on Yemen.
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Did the U.S. Cover Up Navy SEALs' Beating Death of Afghan Detainee & Pattern of Extreme Abuse?
A stunning new investigation by The New York Times examines claims of military abuses and a possible cover-up that goes up the chain of command. Reporters uncovered accounts that in May 2012 members of a Navy SEAL team stationed at an outpost in Kalach, in southern Afghanistan, abused detainees that had been rounded up as suspects after a bomb exploded at a military checkpoint, killing one member of the Afghan Local Police unit the SEALs had been training. According to a report by the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, which the Times acquired through a FOIA request, three Navy SEALs dropped heavy stones on the detainees’ chests, stomped on their heads, and poured bottles of water on their faces in a modified form of waterboarding. One of the detainees was beaten so badly that he eventually died from his injuries. But what happened after the incident has many military justice experts questioning whether Navy commanders worked to cover up the case. Four U.S. soldiers working with the SEALs at the outpost reported that they witnessed the abuse, but Navy commanders chose to deal with the matter in a closed disciplinary process, one usually reserved for minor infractions. The SEALs were cleared of any wrongdoing. Two of the SEALs implicated in the abuse of the detainees and their lieutenant have since been promoted, despite calls by one commander to have them forced out of the SEAL team. We speak with Nicholas Kulish, a correspondent with The New York Times and one of the lead reporters on "Navy SEALs, a Beating Death, and Claims of a Cover-Up."
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: We begin today with a look into a stunning new investigation by The New York Times into claims of military abuses and a possible cover-up that goes up the chain of command. The article, titled "Navy SEALs, a Beating Death and Claims of a Cover-Up," uncovers accounts that in May 2012 members of a Navy SEAL team stationed at an outpost in Kalach, in southern Afghanistan, abused detainees that had been rounded up as suspects after a bomb exploded at a military checkpoint, killing one member of the Afghan Local Police unit the SEALs had been training. According to a report by the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, which the Times acquired through a FOIA request, three Navy SEALs dropped heavy stones on the detainees’ chests, stomped on their heads, and poured bottles of water on their faces in a modified form of waterboarding. One of the detainees was beaten so badly that he eventually died from his injuries.
AMY GOODMAN: But what happened after the incident has many military justice experts questioning whether Navy commanders worked to cover up the case. Four U.S. soldiers working with the SEALs at the outpost reported that they had witnessed the abuse, but Navy commanders chose to deal with the matter in a closed disciplinary process, one usually reserved for minor infractions. The SEALs were cleared of any wrongdoing. Two of the SEALs implicated in the abuse of the detainees and their lieutenant have since been promoted, despite calls by one commander to have them forced out of the SEAL team. Retired Rear Admiral Donald Guter, who as former judge advocate general of the Navy was in charge of all its lawyers, he said of the process, quote, "It’s unfathomable. It really does look like this was intended just to bury this."
New York Times reporters spoke with some of the soldiers who reported the abuse, as well as one of the Afghan men who was detained. They also spoke with the brother of Muhammad Hashem, the man who died after being interrogated at the base.
Well, for more, we’re joined by Nicholas Kulish, a correspondent for The New York Times, lead reporter of this exposé, "Navy SEALs, a Beating Death and Claims of a Cover-Up."
Welcome to Democracy Now! It’s great to have you with us, Nick. Why don’t you start off with how you learned about this incident that, well, happened back in May of 2012?
NICHOLAS KULISH: Sure. Well, initially, we had a tip from a confidential source that this had taken place, which is what led us to the Naval Criminal Investigative report. The problem at that point was that it was entirely redacted, and it said that the soldiers involved, or the witnesses, had recanted their statements. So, at that point, unless we could figure out who these soldiers were, track them down and find out what they had actually seen and what they had actually said, there was nothing we could really do with it. So that was where we focused our efforts.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And you were able to track down some of these soldiers. And had they recanted their testimony?
NICHOLAS KULISH: All of the soldiers, and they all said that they had not recanted their testimony.
AMY GOODMAN: So, talk about what you believe happened on that day.
NICHOLAS KULISH: I mean, I can talk about what the witnesses said.
AMY GOODMAN: What they told you.
NICHOLAS KULISH: And they said that there had been an IED, a bomb blast, that had killed one of the ALP members. The ALP picked up—
AMY GOODMAN: That’s the Afghan police.
NICHOLAS KULISH: The Afghan Local Police picked up the—sort of rounded up the usual suspects, you might say. They grabbed some out-of-town scrap merchants, as well as the people that they were staying with, and brought them to the base, beating them with rifle butts, whipping them with car antennas along the way. One of the soldiers who was closest to the incident when it took place said that he expected the SEALs to stop the abuse. And with a kick to one of the kneeling, bound detainees, he said that it began with the SEALs taking over and leading the abuse themselves from that point on.
AMY GOODMAN: And then what happened?
NICHOLAS KULISH: Two of the soldiers were standing on a rooftop nearby. Two of the soldiers were standing on another rooftop slightly farther away. All four describe a fairly consistent set of circumstances, which you alluded to—dropping rocks, one of the soldiers said to me, so heavy that a muscular SEAL needed two hands to lift them, which would mean at least 20 pounds probably, dropping them onto their chests, at one point pulling their legs apart, dropping them on their groins, standing on one of the victims’ heads eight to 10 times—so, I mean, you know, if the witness statements are correct, a really pretty gruesome circumstance.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Well, one of the things that struck me in some of these statements that were given is the—that this apparently may not have been an isolated incident in terms of how the SEALs were dealing with the local population, because one of the soldiers said—and this is an enlisted man, not part of the SEALs—"My initial thought of the SEAL’s was that I thought they were disciplined professionals. As time went on it seemed the SEAL’s became bored. They started throwing grenades off the roof of the camp, shoot at local nationals that were on ridgelines, most of the time they would do it without warning. When they did shoot warning shots at the locals it was for no reason, they were no threat. ... This didn’t happen everyday, but it was often." So, it did seem that there was definitely conflict between some of the regular soldiers and the SEALs on the way they were handling their assignments.
NICHOLAS KULISH: Yeah, absolutely. There were other incidents that I heard about. At one point, one of the SEALs pulled a gun on a soldier in the base gym—as a joke, supposedly, but that’s a very—that, in and of itself, we’ve been told by military lawyers, would be a serious offense; shooting at a kitten under an ammunition shed, which, aside from the kitten itself, you talk about possibly hitting explosives or a ricochet hitting one of the servicemembers on the base. And, you know, I’d like to point out that we spoke with Afghan elders and villagers, who confirmed a lot of this, such as shooting at people in their almond groves or wheat fields, just, you know, warning shots or for fun or however you want to characterize it.
AMY GOODMAN: I want to turn to an excerpt from the statement by the soldiers who witnessed the abuse of the detainees. One of the soldiers, whose name was redacted from the report, spoke of the general actions by the Navy SEALs, saying, quote, "Me and my guys witnessed all sorts of inappropriate behavior by the SEALs. I personally witnessed them throwing grenades over the wall of the compound for no particular reason. I saw them shoot at random vehicles with the .50cal and I also saw one of the SEAL’s shoot an Mk-13 grenade launcher towards an Afghan male as a warning shot. They didn’t kill anyone, but it was all very excessive." So, you have this situation, and the question is: How does the military then deal with it?
NICHOLAS KULISH: Well, and that’s the real issue. You know, the commander—these SEALs were from SEAL Team 2. And the commander of SEAL Team 2, who was in Afghanistan at the time—
AMY GOODMAN: And explain where this is in Afghanistan.
NICHOLAS KULISH: Sure. This is in—you would say southern or eastern, southeastern Afghanistan. It’s a very remote area. You wouldn’t—you don’t even have cellphone service there. But there is a road crossing and a bus stop, so there is, you know, by Afghan standards, some sort of bustling commerce that takes place there.
So, the soldiers actually did not report the abuse immediately. There was some concerns, at such an isolated outpost, outnumbered by the Navy personnel. They waited until they got back to the larger regional base at Tirin Kot, where they then reported the abuse up the chain of command. The Navy SEAL commander who was in charge of the four SEALs who were accused called in the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, took their guns away, and—
AMY GOODMAN: NCIS.
NICHOLAS KULISH: NCIS. And when it became clear that there were serious allegations, he sent them home. So, as far as the criminal justice experts that we’ve spoken to—the military justice experts, I should say—that was all handled correctly, the way that you would expect.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: So, but then what happened? How come they were not court-martialed?
NICHOLAS KULISH: I think that’s the biggest question that remains. I think that, you know, the former JAGs that we spoke to, Judge Advocate General Corps military lawyers, all said that the logical next step would have been an Article 32 hearing. That’s similar to a grand jury for the military. I think some people might be familiar with it, because Bowe Bergdahl recently had an Article 32 hearing. But for some reason, that did not take—that did not take place. The Navy captain, Robert E. Smith, said that he believed that conflicting statements between the Naval personnel and the Army soldiers was enough that he should handle it with his own closed hearing.
AMY GOODMAN: One of the military experts you spoke to is Geoffrey Corn, a former military lawyer who was the Army’s senior expert adviser on the law of war. He warned that not taking charges seriously damages ethical standards and morale. You quote him saying, "What’s the message for the 10,000 guys that were in the same moment and said, 'No, we're not crossing this line’? It diminishes the immense courage it takes to maintain that line between legitimate and illegitimate violence." This is a very profound point, Nick.
NICHOLAS KULISH: Yeah, you know, and I think that Geoffrey Corn felt very passionate about that, that it’s not—it’s not easy to be out there in these difficult situations in places like Afghanistan or Iraq, losing friends at times to wounds, or even being killed, and then being expected to follow the laws of war and behave yourself and be respectful to the local population. By overlooking or choosing to ignore serious allegations of abuse, you’re, in some ways, I think—Geoffrey Corn would say you’re kind of invalidating all the efforts and hard choices that those other soldiers have made.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And what’s the—what was the effect of this, in terms of the local—you said you talked to some local elders—on the surrounding community, of these kinds of actions?
NICHOLAS KULISH: Sure. I think it’s important to note that the point of this mission was to win over the local population. The reason they were in such a small outpost is that they were supposed to be close to the people, getting to know the people, building up a local police force that could defend them from the Taliban. After this incident and the series of incidents that preceded it, many people fled for the Taliban-controlled area. We very recently learned, just in the past couple of weeks, that after this incident took place—or, just recently, that the Taliban are in control of the area and, with the help of the villagers, bulldozed the outpost, that the Americans had retreated from.
AMY GOODMAN: In May 2010, Matthew McCabe was the last of three Navy SEALs acquitted after facing courts-martial on charges that they mistreated an Iraqi prisoner suspected in the deaths of four Blackwater security guards whose charred bodies were dragged through the city of Fallujah in 2004. U.S. military officials had charged one of the SEALs with punching the prisoner, Ahmed Hashim Abed, after he was taken into custody September 1st in Iraq. All three SEALs had been charged with dereliction of duty and lying to Navy investigators to cover up the incident. This is Matthew McCabe speaking to Fox News after he was cleared.
MATTHEW McCABE: I’m ridiculously happy right now. This is an amazing feeling, and I’m glad we can just tie it up with me being found not guilty. And, you know, the other two guys were already found not guilty, so this is amazing. I’m on cloud nine right now.
AMY GOODMAN: That was Matthew McCabe speaking to Fox News after he was cleared. He also described the court-martial process.
MATTHEW McCABE: There’s kind of some misconception about—what we did is we denied general’s mast, which doesn’t necessarily mean that we request court-martial; however, that is the next step if the convening authority does not want to dismiss the charges. So, we ended up coming to court-martial, and that was in the best interest of everybody anyways, and we all got acquitted.
AMY GOODMAN: So that’s an example in another case not related to this one, but what this means. And if you can talk about not only the Navy SEALs not being court-martialed—this, in Afghanistan, in your case—but people being promoted?
NICHOLAS KULISH: Yeah, and I think that for the witnesses, in fact, the witnesses did not know what had happened, what the disposition of this case was. They believed that they were testifying at a court-martial, when in fact it was just the—what’s called the captain’s mast procedure. And I think it’s fair to say that they were stunned when they learned that the people involved had been—that the SEALs who they had accused had been promoted. They were absolutely shocked.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Has there been any reaction, since your article came out, to the—to what you reported?
NICHOLAS KULISH: I mean, there’s been a great deal of reaction from readers. People have really been very interested in the story there. There has not, since it’s been reported, been anything from the Navy command or from the Pentagon. In their statements to us, they’ve said that they defend the prerogative of a commander to deal with these discipline issues, as a broader point, that there’s a long tradition of that being the way that it’s handled, whether they agree with each and every case or not.
AMY GOODMAN: How does this—is there a possibility of this being reopened? And what has been the response to your piece? It was front page of The New York Times yesterday.
NICHOLAS KULISH: Sure. You know, we spoke with Rachel VanLandingham, who was the chief legal adviser to the Army’s—or the military’s Central Command for detainee matters. And she said very strongly, after reviewing the entire NCIS file, that she thought that the case should be reopened. So the question—I think the open question is whether that will happen.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, I want to thank you for being with us, Nicholas Kulish, correspondent for The New York Times, one of the lead reporters on their new exposé, "Navy SEALs, a Beating Death and Claims of a Cover-Up." He’s also the author of The Eternal Nazi: From Mauthausen to Cairo, the Relentless Pursuit of SS Doctor Aribert Heim.
This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. When we come back, we go to Denver, Colorado, to a case of a man who’s been held in prison for decades. The evidence? The dream of a woman who said she believed he raped her, based on her dream. Stay with us.
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Enrique Marquez, Friend of Syed Farook, Indicted on Terrorism Charges
In California, federal officials have indicted 24-year-old Enrique Marquez for several terrorism-related charges, claiming Marquez purchased the firearms involved in the December 2 mass shooting at the Inland Regional Center in San Bernardino, California. Authorities say Marquez is the neighbor and friend of shooting suspect Syed Rizwan Farook and that the two allegedly talked about radical Islamist ideas together. United States Attorney Eileen Decker said in a statement: "While there currently is no evidence that Mr. Marquez participated in the Dec. 2 attack or had advance knowledge of it, his prior purchase of the firearms and ongoing failure to warn authorities about Farook’s intent to commit mass murder had fatal consequences." The charges come one day after FBI Director James Comey said that there remains no evidence either of the suspects in the San Bernardino shooting had any direct contact with any terrorist organizations. Comey also said suspect Tashfeen Malik did not pledge allegiance to ISIS on social media, contrary to widespread previous reports citing unnamed government officials.
Obama: No "Specific and Credible" Threat of Terrorist Attack in U.S.
The arrest of Enrique Marquez comes as President Obama said there is no specific and credible threat of a terrorist attack in the United States. Obama spoke at the National Counterterrorism Center in Washington on Thursday.
President Obama: "Now, I want to repeat what my team just told me. At this moment our intelligence and counterterrorism professionals do not have any specific and credible information about an attack on the homeland. That said, we have to be vigilant."
President Obama is planning to meet privately with the families of the victims in San Bernardino mass shooting later today.
Hate Crimes on Muslim Americans, Mosques Have Tripled Since Paris
New data shows hate crimes against Muslim Americans and U.S. mosques have tripled since the Paris attacks. The hate crimes include violent assaults on students wearing headscarves, vandalism and arsons at mosques, and shootings and death threats at Muslim-owned businesses. The study was performed by the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State Univeristy, San Bernardino. It shows there have been 38 Islamophobic attacks since the Paris attacks on November 13, a little over a month ago. The frequency of recent attacks is the highest level of Islamophobic hate crimes the United States has seen since the aftermath of September 11, 2001.
CWA Backs Sanders, as Campaign Hits 2M Individual Contributions
In news from the campaign trail, Democratic candidate Bernie Sanders has received two key endorsements ahead of Saturday’s Democratic presidential debate. On Thursday, the 700,000-member union Communication Workers of America and the 270,000-person progressive group Democracy for America both announced they are backing Sanders. This comes as Sanders’ campaign has received 2 million individual campaign contributions.
DNC Cuts Off Sanders Campaign from Voter Files After Data Breach
The Democratic National Committee said it has indefinitely cut off Sanders’ access to the Democratic Party’s master voter file, after a computer glitch made some confidential data from Clinton’s campaign briefly accessible to the Sanders campaign. The Sanders campaign says it has fired a staffer who breached Clinton’s data. Being locked out of the file means the Sanders campaign will not be able access the party’s master list of likely Democratic voters, effectively grounding the campaign’s voter outreach to a halt.
Report: U.S. Cable News Aid Acceptance of Trump's Rhetoric
A U.K.-based media watchdog group is criticizing U.S. media outlets for the coverage of Donald Trump, saying the outlets have aided the rise of his presidential campaign and the acceptance of his xenophobic rhetoric. The Ethical Journalism Network says the three major U.S. cable news outlets devoted twice as much airtime to Donald Trump than to any other Republican candidate and that the majority of this coverage did not fact-check his false claims or push back against his "unapologetically xenophobic anti-immigration rhetoric."
China: Beijing Issues Its 2nd "Red Alert" for Toxic Smog
In China, Beijing has issued its second-ever "red alert" for air pollution today as officials warn that toxic smog will descend upon the city for four days. Last week, Beijing issued its first-ever "red alert," leading to the shutdown of more than 3,000 schools and the closing of factories and construction sites.
NOAA: 2015 Arctic Temperatures are Warmest on Record
Meanwhile, a new report by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration shows this year’s Arctic temperatures are the warmest on record. The report found some areas of the Arctic experienced temperatures more than 5 degrees warmer than average. It also found "extensive" melting across more than 50 percent of Greenland’s ice sheet. Speaking at a news conference on Tuesday, NOAA chief scientist Richard Spinrad warned: "The Arctic is warming twice as fast as other parts of the planet."
Ex-Hedge Funder Martin Shkreli Arrested for Ponzi-Style Securities Fraud
The former hedge fund manager who sparked national outrage after he hiked the price of a life-saving drug by more than 5,000 percent has been arrested on securities fraud. Prosecutors say Martin Shkreli orchestrated a Ponzi-like scheme at his former hedge fund and his startup pharmaceutical company Turing Pharmaceuticals. Robert Capers, U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York, announced the charges Thursday.
Robert Capers: "Today this office and the FBI are announcing the arrests this morning of Martin Shkreli and Evan Greebel and the unsealing of a seven-count indictment charging Shkreli with securities fraud conspiracy, securities fraud, and wire fraud conspiracy, and Greebel with wire fraud conspiracy."
Martin Shkreli was freed on $5 million bond Thursday afternoon. U.S. authorities said that during the arrest they did not seize a one-of-a-kind Wu-Tang Clan album that Martin Shkreli had reportedly purchased for $2 million and then boasted that he didn’t even plan to listen to it.
PA: Mumia Abu-Jamal to Testify over Lack of Medical Care
In Pennsylvania, imprisoned former Black Panther and journalist Mumia Abu-Jamal is set to testify in court today on the lack of adequate medical care he’s received in prison. Abu-Jamal has been ill with symptoms of the hepatitis C virus for more than eight months, but prison officials have refused to dispense an antiviral drug that could cure him, claiming his symptoms are not "severe enough." A hearing set to begin this morning, in which Abu-Jamal will appear via video stream from prison, will address whether he should be treated immediately. His supporters say he nearly died from untreated diabetes in March and has been suffering from serious skin rashes and swelling linked to his untreated hepatitis C virus.
New Orleans City Council Votes to Remove Confederate Monuments
The New Orleans City Council has voted to remove four monuments to the Confederacy in a 6-1 vote Thursday. Officials will soon take down statutes of General Robert E. Lee, Confederate President Jefferson Davis and other monuments. It’s the latest in a series of Confederate symbols to be targeted for removal from public spaces since a white supremacist killed nine African-American worshipers in Charleston, South Carolina, on June 17. New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu described Thursday’s vote to remove the monuments as a "courageous decision to turn a page on our divisive past and chart the course for a more inclusive future."
U. of Chicago to Build Level 1 Trauma Center for South Side
And the University of Chicago has announced it will build a Level 1 adult trauma center for the South Side on its Hyde Park Medical Center. The South Side has been without a Level 1 adult trauma center since 1991, forcing residents of communities with a disproportionate amount of gun violence to travel the furthest for life-saving care. Black youth from the South Side of Chicago have waged a more than five-year-long campaign demanding the University of Chicago build this trauma center, staging dozens of protests, lockdowns and other actions. The movement was sparked by the 2010 death of 18-year-old activist Damian Turner, who was shot only blocks from the University of Chicago, but who had to travel all the way to another hospital downtown, where he died. Organizer Veronica Morris-Moore explained the significance of Thursday’s announcement.
Veronica Morris-Moore: "It means that black lives matter. It’s not just a hashtag, and it’s not just a movement. It is a reputable source for political changes. It means that people who believe that racism exists within the institutions, within the policies of this country have to organize with folks who believe what they believe and find a common issue to fight for that addresses the day-to-day lives of black people. The university has conceded its power to the demands of young black people and the people that have supported them and the community that they represent."
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