The video

This video shows Arnold Beverly admitting he was hired to kill Police
Officer Daniel Faulkner because Faulkner "was a problem for the mob and
corrupt politicians, because he interfered with the graft and payoffs made
to allow illegal activity..." The statement indicates that Mumia arrived on
the scene only after the officer was shot contradicting previous accusations
made around the case. This confession suggests that massive police
corruption-thus far covered up-is where the real story lies.

The urgency

A Philadelphia judge refused to resurrect Mumia Abu-Jamal's state appeal
today, rejecting the death-row inmate's argument that he was poorly
represented in his original trial and that new testimony would clear him.

Initially in July of this year, federal district Judge Yohn, who has Mumia's
habeas corpus appeal before him, refused to take the deposition of Arnold
Beverly, despite its obvious relevance in showing that Mumia did not do the
crime for which he's about to be sent to death! Yohn cited the
Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act-a Republican crime bill
signed by Clinton after the Oklahoma City bombing.

Common Pleas Judge Pamela Dembe recently ruled that she does not have
jurisdiction over Abu-Jamal's petition for a new trial, scuttling his hopes
for another round of state-court appeals.

Abu-Jamal exhausted the state appeals process two years ago, but a petition
filed in September argued that the defense had new evidence to clear him,
including a confession by a man named Arnold Beverly. Prosecutors argued
that the petition wasn't filed in time and urged Dembe to dismiss it.

In a 1999 affidavit, Beverly claimed he was hired by the mob to kill police
Officer Daniel Faulkner because the 25-year-old officer had interfered with
mob payoffs to police.

But Abu-Jamal's former lawyers, Leonard Weinglass and Daniel R. Williams,
who were fired in May after Williams published a book about the case,
thought the confession was not credible and a federal judge refused to order
Beverly to testify on Abu-Jamal's behalf.

Abu-Jamal argued that he should be entitled to another state appeal because
his former attorneys denied him the right to effective counsel by not
presenting the Beverly confession.

Dembe dismissed the value of the confession.

"Aggrandizing themselves by confessing to participation in high-profile
cases is not unusual for persons," she wrote. "... witnesses who recant and
witnesses who mysteriously appear long after trial are regarded with
suspicion by the courts."

Abu-Jamal's new lawyers asked Dembe to waive a requirement that defendants
request a new trial no more than 60 days after learning new information that
would justify overturning a conviction.

But the district attorney's office argued that the request for a new state
appeal was not filed in time because Abu-Jamal himself knew about the
Beverly petition two years ago.

Abu-Jamal's federal appeal, his last chance to reverse his conviction and
death sentence, is pending.

A former Black Panther and radio journalist, Abu-Jamal was convicted of
shooting Faulkner during the early-morning hours of Dec. 9, 1981, after the
officer pulled over Abu-Jamal's brother in a downtown traffic stop.
Previously the authorities had attempted to put robbery charges on Mumia
when he wasnít even in the country when the crime was committed, it seems
they were out to get him.

Celebrities, death-penalty opponents and foreign politicians have since
rallied to Abu-Jamal's cause, calling him a political prisoner and charging
that he was railroaded by a racist justice system.

Newspapers and TV have in general have remained deathly silent on this
critical development and the case in general which by many is regarded as a
political execution.