{news} RELEASE Case against Green Boston City Councilmember unravels; Greens seek probe of FBI targeting

[Justine McCabe]

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From: "dcsgpnews4" <dcsgpnews4 at gmail.com>
To: <dcsgpnews2 at yahoo.com>
Sent: Monday, February 23, 2009 12:22 AM
Subject: RELEASE Case against Green Boston City Councilmember unravels; 
Greens seek probe of FBI targeting


> Distributed by the Green Party of the United States http://www.gp.org
>
> Green-Rainbow Party of Massachusetts http://www.massgreens.org
>
> FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: 20 February 2009
>
> Contact: Jill Stein, 617-852-4727, Eli Beckerman, 617-821-1453
> Co-chairs, Green-Rainbow Party, cochairs at green-rainbow.org
>
>
> FBI Case Against Turner Unravels; Renewed call for Investigation of
> FBI Targeting
>
>
> The FBI's "cooperating witness" who is the foundation of the FBI
> attempt to convict Chuck Turner and Dianne Wilkerson of extortion has
> announced that he is no longer cooperating with the FBI.  In a front
> page article in Friday's Boston Globe, Ronald Wilburn states that he
> "felt he had been used by the FBI to topple a pair of prominent black
> politicians". Wilburn goes on to say "Dianne is a thief. Chuck isn't.
> Dianne knew better. Chuck is a victim of circumstance." Those
> circumstances, it should be noted, appear to have been fully
> engineered by the FBI informant. Importantly, the suspicious
> activities they suggest were initiated and carried out by the FBI
> informant, not by Chuck Turner. The unfolding facts thus appear not
> only to exonerate Turner, but also to raise serious concerns about the
> abuse of secret police powers by the FBI.
>
> While much of the Boston media presented the case against Turner as
> "damning", and some even claimed that the presumption of innocence was
> "meaningless", a more skeptical position was adopted by those who knew
> Turner well.  An analysis of the FBI affidavit by John Andrews of the
> Green-Rainbow Party found the affidavit to be "a decidedly
> unconvincing document that fails to provide a legitimate law
> enforcement justification for the targeting of Turner."  Turner has
> steadfastly insisted that he is innocent, and his case has drawn
> support both from his own community and from nationally known figures
> such as Ramsey Clark.
>
> "The flimsy nature of the case against Turner underscores the need to
> investigate FBI bias in selecting public officials to be targets of
> sting operations" said Green-Rainbow Party co-chair Jill Stein.  Stein
> noted that "Turner has been an outspoken critic of FBI infringements
> on civil liberties, and has clashed with the FBI on high profile cases
> such as the imprisonment of the American Indian Movement's Leonard
> Peltier and the FBI killing of Puerto Rican separatist Filiberto Ojeda
> Rios.  It is crucial that we get to the bottom of the question of
> whether Turner was targeted because he dared to criticize FBI
> behavior."
>
> The Green-Rainbow Party's initial request for a Department of Justice
> investigation was declined by the DOJ, who merely referred the matter
> to the FBI.  According to Green-Rainbow co-chair Eli Beckerman, "The
> latest turn of events makes it more important than ever that an
> investigation of political motivations in FBI targeting be conducted
> by parties who are not part of the FBI hierarchy."  For his part,
> Turner has asked that all potential politically-motivated indictments
> that were initiated under the Bush Administration be examined.
>
> Green-Rainbow communications director Lloyd Smith added, "The charges
> against Turner should be dropped.  But that alone isn't enough.  Until
> we get to the bottom of the targeting issue on a nationwide level, any
> public official who criticizes FBI misbehavior will have to worry
> about whether they'll be the next target of a sting operation. If
> Attorney General Eric Holder wants to demonstrate the courage of his
> convictions, and that we're not a 'nation of cowards', he should act
> upon former Attorney General Ramsey Clark's request and investigate
> potentially racially and/or politically motivated FBI targeting."
>
>
> #####
>
>
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