Official statement by Chairman Omali Yeshitela on behalf of the Uhuru 3, including Penny Hess and Jesse Nevel.
Originally published in Hands off Uhuru.
On September 12, 2024 a jury in the federal courthouse in Tampa, Florida repudiated the more serious charge of the U.S. government’s frame-up of the Uhuru 3 by finding myself, along with Penny Hess and Jesse Nevel, NOT GUILTY of being agents of the Russian government.
The prosecutors unleashed a barrage of lies and distortions of the law, along with deliberately confusing jury instructions, to mislead the jury into returning an inconsistent verdict, convicting us on the lesser charge of “conspiracy to commit an offense against the United States,” which we intend to appeal and are confident we will win. But more importantly, the jury’s “not guilty” verdict on the “Russian agents” charge means that the jurors agreed with the legitimacy of our efforts to advocate for the liberation of Africa and African people.
We congratulate the jury for their ability to see through the U.S. government’s attempt to criminalize criticism by the African Liberation Movement of U.S. government treatment of African people in the United States.
The jury rejected the bogus charge that African people require leadership from Russians or groups characterized as “white” to define and lead our struggle to end domestic colonialism.
We salute the people’s multi-faceted and ubiquitous movement for anti-colonial free speech and democratic rights whose tireless and heroic organizing contributed profoundly towards this massive victory.
The U.S. government did not intend to lose their case on the charge that the Uhuru Movement was working for the Russians. Their political goal was to use the “foreign agent” charge to deny the legitimacy of the Black Liberation Movement when we criticize the U.S. government for its treatment of African people. Their charge that we are “foreign agents” was meant to mute the significance of our criticisms of the killings of Black men and women by police, the mass incarceration of our people, the gentrification and other forms of colonial terror in our communities, by saying that it was actually the “Russians who told us to say it.”
The U.S. government expended a tremendous amount of resources, at least tens of millions of dollars and hundreds of FBI agents and other government personnel to carry out this sham trial. They stole from our properties at least 13 terabytes of data, the equivalent of two and a half million books’ worth of information. They put 14 witnesses on the stand to present their “evidence,” all of them FBI agents except for two “expert witnesses” who admitted they knew nothing about our case and claimed they couldn’t remember how much the government had paid them to testify.
We defeated them without calling any witnesses to the stand. Instead, our incredible legal team used their opening and closing arguments along with their withering cross-examination of the government’s witnesses to educate the jury about who we are and what our struggle is about. Our attorneys told the jury that Chairman Omali Yeshitela is a revolutionary who is not for sale. We showed evidence of Burning Spear newspapers and other political documents by our Party dating back to the 1970s illustrating that we have fought for more than 50 years for the liberation of our people.
Under cross-examination one FBI agent after another was forced to admit that there was no evidence that we ever agreed to work under the “direction or control” of Russia. The lead investigator from the FBI even had to admit, under oath, that the FBI and the DOJ knowingly lied to the people when they indicted us for “election interference” despite the fact that not a shred of evidence of anything of the sort was ever identified.
The jury saw right through it and was able to declare that the African People’s Socialist Party and Chairman Omali Yeshitela have never worked for the Russians; we have always worked for Black people.
This was a political trial. The colonial State’s goal was bigger than simply convicting me and putting me in prison; their failed efforts to convince a jury that we are “foreign agents” was part of a larger political goal to forever discredit speech by Black people and other colonized peoples against our oppression at the hands of the U.S. government.
The U.S. government told the jury that when we demanded reparations to our people, it was the Russians who told us to do that. The jury said no. They told the jury that when we fought to expose and end the genocide against African people in the U.S. and around the world, it was the Russians who told us to do it. The jury said no. They told the jury that when we go around the world to win friends and allies to our struggle for freedom, it was the Russians who made us do that. The jury said no.
The U.S. government lied, and they lost. We told the truth, and we won.
The jury saw the evidence, presented both by the prosecutors and by our attorneys, of our more than five decades of consistent, revolutionary work to free our people from colonial oppression. They saw that we are principled and passionate about freedom. The jury heard me speak through videos of presentations that were screened by both sides.
Our legal team was brilliant. We applaud the relentless work by our attorneys Ade Griffin, Mutaqee Akbar, Leonard Goodman, Angela Reaney and Tom Inskeep.
Here’s what we’re calling on everyone to do:
- Submit letters to the judge as we approach our sentencing date scheduled for November 25, after which we intend to file a motion to appeal the conspiracy conviction. Stay tuned to HandsOffUhuru.org in the coming days for more details.
- Make plans to come to Tampa, Florida on November 25 to pack the courthouse for our sentencing hearing. Details will be announced soon.
- Mobilize for a massive anti-colonial free speech mobilization in Washington, DC on November 2, 2024, the annual Black People’s March on the White House sponsored by the Black is Back Coalition for Social Justice, Peace and Reparations. This will be an anti-colonial march, led by Africans, Mexicans, Palestinians, Indigenous, Filipino and other colonized peoples.
- Continue to stand with the Uhuru Movement and the African liberation struggle. Support, protect and defend our dual power programs for African working class economic development and self-determination.
- Continue to donate to the Hands Off Uhuru Legal Defense Fund at HandsOffUhuru.org/Donate
- Finally, the most important thing you can do right now is to inform the world that the U.S. government lied and lost. The Uhuru Movement told the truth and won.
The verdict is in: Chairman Omali Yeshitela and the African People’s Socialist Party are not for sale. We have our own agency. We are our own liberators. We don’t work for the Russians; we work for Black people. And we will continue to do so until all African people and the oppressed peoples of the world are free.
Uhuru!
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