[Pnews] Waposhitwe Mondo Eyen we Langa spoke about the evidence used against him

[Prisoner News]

*http://www.examiner.com/article/waposhitwe-mondo-eyen-we-langa-spoke-about-the-evidence-used-against-him*

*Waposhitwe Mondo Eyen we Langa spoke about the evidence used against him*

Michael Richardson - April 4, 2016

Waposhitwe Mondo Eyen we Langa, former David Rice, died last month at 
the Nebraska State Penitentiary where he was serving a life sentence for 
a crime he said he did not commit. In the years before he died, Mondo 
granted a series of interviews discussing the allegations against him. 
“There are all kinds of things about the case that are really pretty 
basic and pretty outrageous that are part of the record that people 
don’t know about,” said Mondo.

Mondo we Langa and Edward Poindexter, called the Omaha Two, were leaders 
of the National Committee to Combat Fascism and the targets of J. Edgar 
Hoover's clandestine COINTELPRO operation of the Federal Bureau of 
Investigation. The two men were convicted of the August 17, 1970 bombing 
murder of Patrolman Larry Minard, Sr., even though a fifteen year-old, 
Duane Peak, confessed to planting the bomb. Peak avoided prison with a 
juvenile delinquency charge in exchange for his testimony that Mondo and 
Poindexter put him up to the crime.

Mondo wondered why anyone would believe Duane Peak:

“From the time he was arrested to the time of the trial, Duane Peak gave 
a minimum of six different versions of the plan to “off a pig.” Of all 
these versions, only one, which he gave at the trial, implicated me as 
having anything to do with the death of Minard, and then only 
questionably. How can a witness tell even two different stories and one 
of the not be a lie? Duane Peak told a minimum of six. Duane Peak is a 
perjurer.”

“All of Duane Peak’s testimony linking me to the blowing up of Minard 
was negated by witnesses for the defense, two of them his own cousins.”

“It has been established that Duane Peak did not even mention my name 
until after having been told to do so by Art O’Leary, after O’Leary made 
the deal which allowed Duane to slide out from under a murder charge,” 
said Mondo about the special prosecutor assigned his case.

“Duane was someone who did pills and other drugs and was suspended at 
least once from our chapter for being intoxicated from drug use. Another 
time, he was suspended for firing several bullets at a sparrow that had 
flown inside our headquarters.”

“In short, Duane was unstable….I don’t believe he acted on his own. But 
I did not use him. I did not put his life in jeopardy.”

“Only two people were actually implicated: Duane Peak and his brother, 
Donald. Testimony was given to the effect that these two parties had 
been seen together with the suitcase, had been observed holding 
whispered conversations while in possession of the suitcase, had been 
seen and heard laughing and joking together about the bombing several 
hours after it had taken place, etc. But Donald Peak was never brought 
to trial to face any charges whatsoever in regard to the Minard death.”

Donald Peak was in the employment of the FBI as an informant, according 
to James Perry, who lead the police investigation. Perry made the 
disclosure in an interview with a private investigator. Also, Donald 
Peak led the police and FBI agents to his brother Duane's hiding place 
and identified the anonymous 911 caller who lured Minard to his death as 
his younger brother. However, while in police custody, Donald was never 
tested for handling explosives.

Agents from the FBI rival agency, Acohol, Tobacco and Firearms Division, 
provided testimony about dynamite particles allegedly found in Mondo's 
pants pocket and a “match” between a piece of wire and Mondo's pliers. A 
published newspaper photo in the Omaha World-Herald of Mondo with his 
hands jammed in his pockets moments before he tested clean of explosives 
proves the dynamite particles were added after Mondo surrendered and his 
clothing was taken from him. The “match” of wire to pliers was based 
upon fifteen points of simiarity and twenty-five points of dissimiarity.

Mondo had the dissimarities brought out in cross-examination, however 
the jury ignored the contradictory testimony. Mondo had a chance to look 
at the wire and found another glaring fault with the ATF story:

“The prosecution claimed a piece of copper wire was found at the “scene 
of the bombing,” that markings on this wire were compared in a lab to 
markings left on a piece of lead cut by pliers found in my house. The 
wire wasn’t actually found at the scene of the bombing but in the 
basement of the house next door, about three feet from a tool bench.”

“Either the wire was found to have no traces of dynamite on it or it 
wasn’t tested," said Mondo.

“The only copper wire testified to as being used in the bombing was that 
from the blasting caps. That wire was a half to two-thirds smaller in 
diameter than the wire found at the house next door to the bombing,” 
explained Mondo.

Dynamite allegedly found by detective Jack Swanson at the time of the 
trial was also purported to be found by detective Robert Pfeffer in 
post-trial proceedings, raising the questions of who found what and where.

Mondo we Langa was present at the hearing before U. S. District Judge 
Warren Urbom, when the police witnesses testified about finding dynamite 
in Mondo's basement.

“I noticed the first cop was presented with a photo of my basement. He 
is asked to identify where he is supposed to have found this box of 
dynamite. So he has the photo before him and he is going like this and 
that, probably trying to jog his memory. Urbom notices it and hands him 
a pen and says, “Mark the specific spot in the photo where you found the 
dynamite.” So he looks at it some more and takes the pen and marks a 
spot. They are done with him, next cop comes up and he is asked the same 
thing.”

“He is looking, finally he points to the spot that the first cop made a 
little box. Same thing with one or two more cops. Same thing. They all 
eventually point to the marked box. I’m saying to myself, man something 
weird is going on around here. Because my belief was they had several 
ways that things could have come down. One, the business about my house 
being open and somebody planted some dynamite. The one that made more 
sense to me was that there was no dynamite there in the first place. Or, 
maybe they had brought the dynamite to the house.”

During a recess in the hearing, Mondo examined the photograph marked by 
Jack Swanson:

“I looked at the photo and I’ll be damned. It is a photo of my basement, 
but whoever took the photo of my basement took the photo lengthwise, 
walking down the kitchen steps. It is an unfinished basement, there may 
have been a concrete wall and the other walls were dirt. And the 
photograph shows the one wall where I had my target up there, my target 
practice range. The coal bin, where the police testified they found the 
dynamite, is not even in the photo.”

“So even though I couldn’t prove the police planted the dynamite or that 
it wasn’t there in the first place, it was obvious their testimony was 
perjured. They say the dynamite was in the coal bin and they identify a 
place where the coal bin isn’t, that is perjured testimony. It is 
obvious they are lying,” said Mondo.

At post-trial proceedings in 2007, the issue of dynaminte was back in 
court, only this time retired detective Robert Pfeffer contradicted his 
own trial testimony backing up Swanson to now take credit for the 
dynamite discovery. Mondo was unimpressed:

“Here is Pfeffer talking about we found a box of dynamite in David 
Rice’s house facing next to the furnace. I’m thinking about this. Well, 
if a person was going to keep his dynamite next to the furnace, and I 
imagine it was to keep it warm, then it would make sense that if there 
were blasting caps in the house then it probably would have been a good 
thing to have these kept like on top of the stove to be consistent with 
this kind of absurdity.”

Edward Poindexter continues to serve his life sentence at the 
maximum-security Nebraska State Penitentiary where he steadfastly 
maintains his innocence. A memorial service for Mondo was recently held 
at the Malcolm X Memorial Center in Omaha with a standing room-only 
crowd and a jammed parking lot full with people seeking to show their 
respects.

-- 
Freedom Archives 522 Valencia Street San Francisco, CA 94110 415 
863.9977 www.freedomarchives.org
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