Free Kamau Sadiki Now!
We are a coalition working to release seriously ill elder Kamau Sadiki from the cruel and inhumane conditions of confinement in Georgia’s Department of Corrections.
Kamau Sadiki (Freddie Hilton) is a man of faith, a doting father of two daughters and a loving grandfather of five. He is a veteran of the BPP, wrongfully convicted in a 30-year-old cold case murder of a Fulton County police officer. Mr. Sadiki has always maintained his innocence.
As a teenager, Kamau worked in the Free Breakfast Program, getting up every morning and cooking and feeding hungry children before they went to school. When the Free Breakfast Program was over for the day, he went into the community to sell the BPP newspaper.
While selling the paper, he continued to educate the people, organizing tenants, welfare mothers, whomever he came into contact with. He worked very hard to empower the community.
Kamau Sadiki was one of the thousands of young Black men and women who made up the BPP. The rank and file members made the BPP the international political force it was.
Medical Neglect and Elder Abuse in Prison
Kamau has open infectious wounds, sarcoidosis of the liver, Hepatitis C, malnutrition, and no assigned physician. He is, therefore, being forced to do his own medical care, including dressing his own wounds, while being held captive inside one of the most notoriously COVID-19 infected and medically neglectful prison “hospitals” in the United States. It is time to bring him home.
In an interview with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution in January 2018, former Augusta State Medical Prison doctor Timothy Young said that he believes that Georgia’s prison system has failed to hold doctors accountable when their negligence has caused inmate deaths. “In my 16 years, I don’t have enough fingers and toes to count the bad outcomes I’ve seen,” he said. “And I’ve never seen one physician disciplined (as a result).”
Justice Denied
At nineteen, Kamau left New York City and lived in the Atlanta area.
On November 3, 1971 Atlanta police officer James Green was murdered. Two witnesses observed three Black males run from a van where Officer Green sat at a gas station in downtown Atlanta. The witnesses failed to identify Kamau Sadiki from a photographic line-up.
Cold Case
THERE WAS NO PHYSICAL EVIDENCE TO IMPLICATE MR. SADIKI. IN 1971, THE ATLANTA POLICE DEPARTMENT CLOSED THE CASE AS UNSOLVED.
In 1999, the FBI, in their attempts to recapture Assata Shakur (the mother of one of Kamau’s daughters), a political exile in Cuba, threatened Kamau Sadiki with life in prison if he did not assist them. When Sadiki refused to betray his principles and entrap her, the FBI convinced Atlanta police to re-open the cold case and charge him.
In 2001, with no eyewitness testimony and no physical evidence, the State based its case entirely upon the statements of police informants Ronald Anderson, Malik Abdur Razzaq, and Avon White, who were present in Atlanta at the time. Kamau Sadiki was arrested in 2002 in Brooklyn, New York some thirty one years after the murder.
Important Testimony Excluded at Trial
In addition to the lack of any physical evidence, John Thomas’ former wife’s testimony was excluded from the trial.
Her testimony would have included two conversations where others admitted their participation in the murder of the officer. Mr. Thomas, now deceased, who knew Kamau, made statements exonerating him, stating that Kamau Sadiki had nothing to do with the shooting. Judge Manis ruled such testimony by Ms. Ignae Thomas inadmissible and excluded the testimony from the jury’s consideration. Judge Manis also included a conspiracy charge to the jury when there was no evidence of such and she also admitted into evidence inflammatory statements regarding Mr. Sadiki’s participation in the BPP and allegations of misdeeds by the BPP, all of which were unrelated to the murder.
Defense attorney Akil Secret told jurors the case didn’t get any better after three decades. “This is a case based on rumors, hearsay, suspicion, and, yes, some lies. We think the evidence will show that justice delayed is justice denied.”
On November 10, 2003, Judge Stephanie Manis sentenced Kamau Sadiki to life imprisonment for murder and ten years to run consecutively for armed robbery after the jury found him guilty.
Judge Manis was also the presiding judge in Kamau’s motion for a new trial, filed by Appellate Attorney Stephen Scarborough, which was heard on April 23, 2009, in Fulton County Superior Court. Judge Manis, who also presided over the trial frame up and unjust conviction of yet another BP veteran, Imam Jamil Al-Amin, of course upheld all of her own biased decisions in the initial trial, and Kamau’s appeal was denied.
The Only Solution is Release
While Kamau has been unjustly imprisoned, his two daughters graduated from college and now have families of their own. In order to address the ongoing medical neglect and wrongful conviction, the only solution is for Kamau to be released. His family has been waiting for a long time to welcome him home.
Please click on to the below Link Tree and write to Kamau, send a card, join the campaign, donate and show Kamau and his family your support.
Freddie Hilton (Kamau Sadiki) #0001150688
Augusta State Medical Prison, Bldg 23A-2
3001 Gordon Highway, Grovetown, GA 30813
Although he legally changed his name to Kamau Sadiki when he became a Muslim, Georgia refuses to recognize this, so all correspondence must be addressed to Freddie Hilton.
HOW YOU CAN HELP
For more on what you can do and for future actions, please
https://linktr.ee/FreeKamauSadiki
OR CONTACT US AT:
kamausadikicampaign@gmail.com