<html>
<body>
<font size=3>Last Updated: December 22. 2009 7:07PM <br><br>
</font><h1><font size=4><b>Refusal to release autopsy raises
suspicions<br><br>
</b></font></h1><h2><b>County medical examiner cites investigation as the
reason for holding on to
information</b></h2><font size=1>
<a href="http://detnews.com/article/20091222/METRO01/912220352/Refusal-to-release-autopsy-raises-suspicions" eudora="autourl">
http://detnews.com/article/20091222/METRO01/912220352/Refusal-to-release-autopsy-raises-suspicions<br>
</a></font><h4><b>Paul Egan / The Detroit
News</b></h4><font size=3><i>Dearborn</i> -- The Wayne County medical
examiner's refusal to release its autopsy report on Imam Luqman Ameen
Abdullah is fueling concerns in the Muslim community about a possible
cover-up of facts surrounding his death, a community leader said Monday.
<br><br>
Abdullah, 53, was killed Oct. 28 in a gunfight with the FBI at a Dearborn
warehouse. The FBI said Abdullah, an alleged leader of a radical Muslim
separatist group involved in fencing stolen goods, fired a weapon that
killed an FBI dog. <br><br>
The county Medical Examiner's Office denied a Nov. 2 request The Detroit
News filed for Abdullah's medical examiner report, saying it was not
complete. <br><br>
Dawud Walid, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic
Relations of Michigan, said the county office has not responded to a
request from his organization requesting a copy of the report once it is
completed. The office also quoted exorbitant fees for copies of autopsy
photos, he said. <br><br>
Dennis Niemiec, a spokesman for the county, confirmed Monday that the
report is completed but is being withheld at the request of Dearborn
Police Chief Ronald Haddad, who does not want the report released until
his department completes its investigation. The county will seek more
information from Haddad about how the release of the report would hamper
his investigation, Niemiec said. <br><br>
Haddad could not be reached for comment. <br><br>
Walid said medical examiner reports are frequently released during active
police investigations. <br><br>
"The unfortunate and perhaps unintended consequence is that the
failure to release the autopsy report and the very exorbitant amount for
the pictures is raising in the minds of some people in the community that
there's a potential cover-up," Walid said. <br><br>
How many times he was shot, whether he suffered dog bites, and whether
Abdullah was handcuffed after he was shot are among the questions on
people's minds, Walid said. <br><br>
Special Agent Sandra Berchtold, a spokeswoman for the FBI, said it was
not the federal agency's call to withhold the report. However,
"evidence is often not released during an ongoing
investigation," she said. <br><br>
</font><h1><font size=4><b>************************************<br>
<a href="http://michiganmessenger.com/31944/fbi-did-not-request-blocking-of-abdullah-autopsy">
FBI did not request blocking of Abdullah autopsy<br><br>
</a></u></b></font></h1><h3><b>Activist: 'They want to determine now what
the public has the right to know about in terms of a shooting where a man
was shot 18 times?'</b></h3><font size=3>By
<a href="http://michiganmessenger.com/author/david-alire-garcia/">David
Alire Garcia</a> 12/16/09 3:36 PM<br><br>
<br>
DETROIT The <a href="http://www.fbi.gov">FBI</a> did not ask that the
autopsy report of
<a href="http://michiganmessenger.com/29006/fbi-raids-kill-imam-of-masjid-al-haqq-mosque-in-detroit">
Luqman Ameen Abdullah</a> be kept secret, according to the spokeswoman
for the agency’s Detroit office.<br><br>
“We have not requested that it be held,” Sandra Berthold told Michigan
Messenger.<br><br>
But Berthold said she can only speak to the FBI’s shooting investigation,
not the
<a href="http://michiganmessenger.com/31691/wayne-county-attorney-says-dearborn-police-dept-made-request-to-withold-abdullah-autopsy-report">
Dearborn Police Department’s homicide investigation</a>.<br><br>
The <a href="http://www.cityofdearborn.org/police/index.shtml">Dearborn
Police Department</a> has yet to respond to several requests for
comment.<br><br>
Abdullah, the former imam of
<a href="http://grocs.dmc.dc.umich.edu/%7Ebiid/album17">Masjid
Al-Haqq</a> mosque in Detroit, was shot dead following FBI raids in and
around Detroit on Oct. 28. He was 53 years old.<br><br>
A federal complaint alleges that Abdullah was the leader of a
Detroit-based radical Islamic group involved in criminal activity. The
U.S. Attorney’s office filed a
<a href="http://download.gannett.edgesuite.net/detnews/2009/pdf/1027fbiraid.pdf">
45-page affidavit</a> in federal court the day before the raids took
place detailing parts of the two-year FBI investigation.<br><br>
Asked why releasing the contents of an autopsy report would interfere
with a homicide investigation in which it’s already been disclosed that
Abdullah’s death was the result of “multiple gunshot wounds,” Berthold
demurred.<br><br>
“I don’t know,” she said. “I can’t answer that question.”<br><br>
Berthold did explain that the two investigations are “running parallel to
each other but they are two separate investigations.”<br><br>
The Dearborn police, she said, “is conducting the investigation into the
imam’s death,” while the FBI’s inspection team “conducting an
investigation into the shooting incident.”<br><br>
Berthold said the FBI’s shooting investigation will look into whether
agents followed protocol and applicable laws. Even though she describes
them as “independent” investigations, that doesn’t necessarily mean there
aren’t some overlapping parts.<br><br>
“There is some collaboration as far as sharing the crime scene,” she
said. “They have to be allowed to interview our people, we have to be
allowed to interview their people.”<br><br>
Berthold said she doesn’t know when the FBI’s shooting investigation will
wrap up.<br><br>
At least one local activist doesn’t believe that the Dearborn Police is
merely trying to prevent any interference into its investigation by
blocking disclosure of Abdullah’s autopsy report to the
public.<br><br>
“That’s a cover up,” said Ron Scott, spokesman for the
<a href="http://www.detroitcoalition.org/">Detroit Coalition Against
Police Brutality</a>. “I don’t know how to say it much more
strongly.”<br><br>
Scott says he thinks that the Dearborn Police are acting contrary to the
First Amendment by withholding the autopsy report.<br><br>
“They want to determine now what the public has the right to know about
in terms of a shooting where a man was shot 18 times?” Scott asked. “Give
me a break. This is a joke. This is a farce.”<br><br>
According to Berthold, Dearborn police officers were not in the Dearborn
warehouse where Abdullah was killed, but instead on the
perimeter.<br><br>
Scott also weighed in on the allegation that
<a href="http://michiganmessenger.com/31540/abdullah-autopsy-kept-secret-by-wayne-county">
Abdullah may have been handcuffed</a> either before or after he was
killed.<br><br>
“Yes, I think that’s significant,” he said. But he suggested that this
may not be an uncommon occurrence.<br><br>
“I have concerns but I know the police do this kind of thing all the
time,” Scott said. “Officers sometimes will put handcuffs on dead people.
They do it. And that just points to the culture of police agencies in
terms of how they dehumanize individuals.”<br><br>
Berthold wouldn’t go into any detail regarding if or why Abdullah may
have been handcuffed prior to arriving at the Wayne County Medical
Examiner’s office, but she did speak generally to how agents operate in
such situations.<br><br>
“I can’t comment on whether the imam was handcuffed or not. But it is
commonplace in an area for security purposes to protect law enforcement,”
she said. “When we execute search warrants, when we execute arrest
warrants, the first thing is safety for both ourselves and the other
individuals surrounding the area.”<br><br>
She added: “It’s paramount for safety purposes to be able to control the
situation and control the activities in a location where there is law
enforcement and the public.”<br><br>
Beyond the particulars of the autopsy report or the handcuffs allegation,
Scott sees a troubling new bias playing out.<br><br>
“This now is a new level of targeting individuals who are perceived as
potential dangers to the state, in this particular case African American
Muslims,” he said. “You have individuals who are targeted and who are
brought out in public primarily because someone may or may not have said
something that someone might assume to mean that they have a difference
with the government. Well, I have a difference with the government,”
Scott added. “A lot of people do.”<br><br>
<br><br>
</font><x-sigsep><p></x-sigsep>
<font size=3 color="#FF0000">Freedom Archives<br>
522 Valencia Street<br>
San Francisco, CA 94110<br><br>
</font><font size=3 color="#008000">415 863-9977<br><br>
</font><font size=3 color="#0000FF">
<a href="http://www.freedomarchives.org/" eudora="autourl">
www.Freedomarchives.org</a></font><font size=3> </font></body>
</html>