good news

Taken from Occupied London

Comrades,

the trial of Bonnano and Stratigopoulos in the city of Larisa resulted in Alfredo Bonanno getting convicted to 4 years of imprisonment for participation to the robbery, while Stratigopoulos was convicted for the armed robbery to 8 years and to 3 months for each of the misdemeanors without bail and without the court recognising any extenuatory circumstances.

From the first instance it became clear that the judge and attorney wanted a fast trial without any ideological characteristics and with only guide being the criminal record of the accused. In short, they wanted to prove that Alfredo Bonanno was the leader, the moral perpetrator of the robbery and that Christos was the pupil, the one who executed the plan.

Yet thanks to the solid evidence, the witnesses who testified in support of the two and the great contribution of the lawyers (Papadakis, Kourtovik, Sineli), these claims collapsed.

It “hurt” them that Alfredo was free, that he has essentially served his sentence – and they looked for any legal or other trick in order to torture him further. And so, from the prison of Larisa he was transported to the city’s police headquarters under the pretext of the approval of his exit from the country by the headquarters in Athens,.

There they informed us that apart from the Interpol alert, they would also hold him until their political senior officers would “judge” whether he would be deported in accordance to article 106 of the presidential decree of 2007. Late in the night, after calling a Larisa-based lawyer, we were informed that Alfredo had been arrested anew in accordance to the above article, as he was considered a threat to public security and unwelcome to Greece!

Once again he had to prove the obvious! A 74-year old man with very poor health was considered dangerous. The same went for us, who were waiting outside, the very few comrades sitting at a bench: they sent Riot Police, DIAS and Zita motorcycle cops, undercovers and the anti-terrorist unit to guard us, since we posed a threat to public security!

Faced with this obvious political revanchist action, played within a strategically covered psychological warfare against Alfredo, we had to decide whether to appeal at the Larisa court, which would mean Alfredo would remain detained until the decision was made or until the Greek state would decide to officially deport him. The instant solution given by his layers was for him to be released on Tuesday afternoon and to leave on his own from Larisa to Italy through Athens in the coming days.

After everything comrades lived through from the day of their arrest up until yesterday, as well as for the rest of Christos’ days in prison, they wish and we wish to extend a huge “thank you” to all friends and comrades from Konitsa who came to our support, the friends from Giannena and across Greece as well as abroad who stood by our side, giving us courage and psychological, moral and financial support.

To the comrades we extend our hand, we unite our camaraderie in a dynamic of anarchist solidarity…

- The families of Christos and Alfredo

a new dispatch has come from leonard peltier via his support team, and it has a ring of optimism to it!

Sisters, brothers, friends and supporters:

I would like to share with you the good feelings I am experiencing right now. On the 16th of October, I met with my team of lawyers, my dream team. I can't reveal the details of this meeting, but I'll tell you this -- It was a great meeting and many positive ideas were discussed. Decisions were made about how best to prepare and file new court actions.

I'm very excited about our plans. We have at the very least 6 more constitutional violations to address. As some of you might know, in these 35 years, I have learned a lot about the law. The legal issues we have to raise now are very serious and the arguments are strong.

We'll file cases very soon, but we have a lot of work ahead of us. This time around, we all must be prepared with not only the legal work, but the political work. We need to be unified in everything we do.

I'm ready to go to battle and hope you'll join with us ­ me, the legal team and my defense committee. We can and will win this time.

you can always write leonard a letter:

Leonard Peltier #89637-132
US Penitentiary ­ Lewisburg
PO Box 1000
Lewisburg, PA 
17837

green scare defendant briana waters has been released from prison on bail pending a re-trial. details have not been released but will most likely be posted on briana's support website in the near future.

from KIRO news washington:

A woman convicted of helping with a 2001 Seattle "ecoterror" attack has returned home.

34-year-old Briana Waters was found guilty of helping in the attack that destroyed a University of Washington research center, but an appeals court overturned the conviction.

Waters was released from prison on Saturday.

She received a six-year sentence after being convicted of serving as the lookout in the attack, but the appeals court concluded the judge made mistakes that cast doubt on the fairness of her trial.

Waters had been connected to a cell of radical environmentalists based in Olympia and in Oregon. They carried out attacks throughout the west from 1996 to 2001, causing more than $80 million in damage.

The North American Animal Liberation group says the woman has been reunited with her daughter.

Albert Woodfox, a former Black panther prisonner who has been in solitary confinement for 36 years in Angola state prison in Lousiana, had his murder charged over turned by Judge James Brady on September 26th 2008. Woodfox said "I am drunk on justice".

Albert Woodfox was convicted of the murder of a prison guard back in 1972, with the lofty testimony of only two witness. In both cases, there is serious doubt as to whether or not the testimonies were valid as both stories were completely different and both prisonners received special privileges after testifying against Woodfox. He was serving a 50 year sentence for armed robbery at the time of the murder conviction.

Although the conviction was overturned, the attorney general of Louisiana James Buddy Caldwell said that he was appealing the decision and that he opposes Woodfox with "...every fiber of my being". The state has now 30 days to decide whether to retry Woodfox or to drop the charges.

For more information, visit : http://www.angola3.org/default.aspx