Chris’s Legal Nightmare

[col. Writ. 6/3/12] © ’12 Mumia Abu-Jamal

Christopher Mbewe lives in a legal nightmare.

He is a lifer, having been convicted of the first degree murder of his wife’s mother, Carol Tollan, back in Dec., 2005.

This, despite the fact that no murder weapon has ever been found, no fingerprints, no DNA, no eyewitness ever testified seeing him at the crime scene, no identification witnesses – nothing.

How can it be possible?

How can this be?

Christopher Mbewe was convicted using purely circumstantial evidence, that at best could be called questionable. Mbewe, 36, is a foreign national from the southern African nation, the Republic of Zambia. Under international treaty law, (called the Vienna Convention), all foreigners arrested must first be allowed to communicate with their home embassy, for any legal or diplomatic assistance that they may wish to provide.

Christopher repeatedly requested a call to the Zambian Embassy, but his requests were ignored.

He assumed that because he was innocent, he would be acquitted.

After all, this was America.

Circumstantial evidence, added to inadmissible hearsay, (although ordered stricken later by the court), became the ingredients for a guilty verdict – and the beginning of his legal nightmare.

He dreams of returning to his beautiful homeland, but he awakens to life in prison.

He continues to struggle for his freedom, and to make his prayers, and his dreams, come true.

--© ’12 maj