[Ppnews] Imam Luqman Ameen Abdullah - Refusal to release autopsy

Wed Dec 23 10:42:04 EST 2009

Last Updated: December 22. 2009 7:07PM

Refusal to release autopsy raises suspicions

County medical examiner cites investigation as 
the reason for holding on to information

http://detnews.com/article/20091222/METRO01/912220352/Refusal-to-release-autopsy-raises-suspicions

Paul Egan / The Detroit News

Dearborn -- 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Haddad could not be reached for comment.

Walid said medical examiner reports are 
frequently released during active police investigations.

"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.

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.

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.

************************************
<http://michiganmessenger.com/31944/fbi-did-not-request-blocking-of-abdullah-autopsy>FBI 
did not request blocking of Abdullah autopsy

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?'

By 
<http://michiganmessenger.com/author/david-alire-garcia/>David 
Alire Garcia 12/16/09 3:36 PM

DETROIT  The <http://www.fbi.gov>FBI did not ask 
that the autopsy report of 
<http://michiganmessenger.com/29006/fbi-raids-kill-imam-of-masjid-al-haqq-mosque-in-detroit>Luqman 
Ameen Abdullah be kept secret, according to the 
spokeswoman for the agency’s Detroit office.

“We have not requested that it be held,” Sandra 
Berthold told Michigan Messenger.

But Berthold said she can only speak to the FBI’s 
shooting investigation, not the 
<http://michiganmessenger.com/31691/wayne-county-attorney-says-dearborn-police-dept-made-request-to-withold-abdullah-autopsy-report>Dearborn 
Police Department’s homicide investigation.

The 
<http://www.cityofdearborn.org/police/index.shtml>Dearborn 
Police Department has yet to respond to several requests for comment.

Abdullah, the former imam of 
<http://grocs.dmc.dc.umich.edu/%7Ebiid/album17>Masjid 
Al-Haqq mosque in Detroit, was shot dead 
following FBI raids in and around Detroit on Oct. 28. He was 53 years old.

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 
<http://download.gannett.edgesuite.net/detnews/2009/pdf/1027fbiraid.pdf>45-page 
affidavit in federal court the day before the 
raids took place detailing parts of the two-year FBI investigation.

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.

“I don’t know,” she said. “I can’t answer that question.”

Berthold did explain that the two investigations 
are “running parallel to each other but they are two separate investigations.”

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.”

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.

“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.”

Berthold said she doesn’t know when the FBI’s 
shooting investigation will wrap up.

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.

“That’s a cover up,” said Ron Scott, spokesman 
for the <http://www.detroitcoalition.org/>Detroit 
Coalition Against Police Brutality. “I don’t know 
how to say it much more strongly.”

Scott says he thinks that the Dearborn Police are 
acting contrary to the First Amendment by withholding the autopsy report.

“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.”

According to Berthold, Dearborn police officers 
were not in the Dearborn warehouse where Abdullah 
was killed, but instead on the perimeter.

Scott also weighed in on the allegation that 
<http://michiganmessenger.com/31540/abdullah-autopsy-kept-secret-by-wayne-county>Abdullah 
may have been handcuffed either before or after he was killed.

“Yes, I think that’s significant,” he said. But 
he suggested that this may not be an uncommon occurrence.

“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.”

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.

“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.”

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.”

Beyond the particulars of the autopsy report or 
the handcuffs allegation, Scott sees a troubling new bias playing out.

“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.”

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