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Hashimpura Massacre: 'Did No One Kill the 42 Men?' A Question After a Court Verdict
Written by Niha Masih | Updated: Mar 23, 2015 00:17 IST

Meerut/New Delhi:
Nearly three decades after 42 Muslim men were killed in Meerut in western Uttar Pradesh, a trial court in Delhi acquitted 16 policemen accused in the case, giving them the "benefit of doubt". Known as the Hashimpura massacre, the case dates back to 1987 when personnel of the Provincial Armed Constabulary or the PAC picked up men from the Hashimpura locality during communal riots in the city and allegedly shot them dead.
The court verdict has reopened wounds of the few who survived.
Recounting the horror, 42-year-old Zulfikar Nasir says he was picked up by the police like other men of the locality and bundled into a truck. He was barely 15 then. Mr Nasir alleged that the police then shot everyone in cold blood.
"Two people died before me. I was hit as well but the bullet hit me in the arm pit. I fell and pretended to be dead. They threw me in the canal with other bodies, from where I escaped," he said.
After a long-drawn legal battle, 16 accused policemen were acquitted by a Delhi court on Saturday for "want of sufficient evidence regarding their identity".
The verdict has also shocked Jamaluddin who lost his 21-year-old son in the incident. "It is being said that the accused policemen could not be identified. I want to ask how could 15-16-year-olds, who were trying to save their lives, identify the accused 20 years later?"
19 policemen were initially chargesheeted by Uttar Pradesh's Crime Branch-Criminal Investigation Department (CB-CID) in 1996. Three died during the trial. In 2002, the case was transferred from a court in Ghaziabad to Delhi by the Supreme Court on a petition filed by the families of the victims. It was only in 2006 that charges were framed against the accused.
"We cross-examined and showed that no evidence links the accused to it. The judgement is based on that," said Defence lawyer Sellar Khan, who represented four of the 16 accused.
But VN Rai, the then Superintendent of Police in Ghaziabad who filed the first FIR in the case, blamed the probe agency for the acquittal which he said was a result of a "shoddy probe".
The victims are expected to file an appeal against the verdict after the detailed order is out later this week. An angry Zulfikar asks, "Did no one kill 42 men in 1987?"

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SECTION
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Lawton_Riot
Fort Lawton Riot

Headstone of Pvt. Guglielmo Olivotto at Fort Lawton military cemetery, Seattle
Date August 14, 1944
Location Fort Lawton, Washington, United States (U.S.)
Participants United States Army soldiers and Italian prisoners of war (POW)
Outcome 1 Italian POW killed
28 U.S. soldiers convicted and imprisoned
The Fort Lawton Riot refers to a series of events in August 1944 starting with a violent conflict between U.S. soldiers and Italian prisoners of war at Fort Lawton in Seattle, Washington during World War II. After the riot, prisoner Guglielmo Olivotto was found dead.[nb 1] This led to the court-martial of 43 soldiers, all of them African Americans.
In 2005, the book On American Soil helped to convince the U.S. Army Board for Correction of Military Records that prosecutor Leon Jaworski had committed "egregious error," and that all convictions should be reversed. President George W. Bush signed legislation allowing the Army to disburse back pay to the defendants or their survivors.
Contents
Riot
Investigation
Defense
Trial
Verdicts
Investigative journalism
U.S. Congress
U.S. Army Board for Correction of Military Records
$725 check
Tribute
Samuel Snow
Roy Montgomery
See also
Notes
References
Books
Media
External links
Riot
The night of August 14, 1944, an African-American port company at Fort Lawton, Seattle was under orders to ship out to the war zone the next morning. Just after 11 p.m, an intoxicated black soldier and his three companions crossed paths with three Italians, who may have also been drinking. Words were exchanged, the black soldier rushed forward, and with one punch, an Italian knocked the American out cold.
The Italians retreated to adjacent barracks, but the call went out about the confrontation. A number of black soldiers, including Pvt. Samuel Snow, ran after the Italians, wielding boards from a fence that they broke down. The Italians, who were in their bunks for the night, heard rocks and bricks being thrown against their windows in their dark quarters. They assumed they were being attacked and began running, some jumping out of windows. In the melee, both Italians and United States soldiers were injured. Hearing the commotion, and responding to a 'whistle' calling them to defend their fellow soldiers, dozens of black soldiers came out of their barracks. A rumor began that one American was dead. (This was untrue.) Assuming they were being attacked, dozens of black soldiers headed into the Italian area, armed with rocks, fence posts and a couple of knives.[citation needed]
Private Clyde Lomax, a white member of the Military Police Corps, was responsible for patrolling the area known as the "Colored Area," and was on the scene almost immediately. He loaded the most severely injured American into his jeep, but delayed transporting him to the hospital. Lomax failed to request back up from fellow MPs or to notify the chain of command of the severity of the situation.[citation needed]
More than forty minutes passed before a contingent of MPs arrived. By then, dozens of men were injured. The most seriously injured were all Italian prisoners-of-war; they were transported to hospitals for treatment. One Italian spent 16 months recovering from his injuries.[citation needed]
The military policemen restored order without taking anyone into custody. Later, they claimed it had been too dark to identify any of the participants in the riot. The next morning, Lomax, accompanied by a black MP, discovered the body of prisoner Guglielmo Olivotto, hanging from a noose on the obstacle course.[citation needed]
Investigation
By sunset on the day Olivotto's body was discovered, Colonel Harry Branson, Fort Lawton's commanding officer, had ordered all evidence destroyed. No fingerprints were secured, no footprints saved, no weapons properly catalogued. When Branson tried to ship the black soldiers to San Francisco that same day, he was countermanded after a subordinate reported his actions to the Pentagon.
The riot and lynching was front page news in Seattle, and became a major story across the United States. The United States Army sent its best young prosecutor, Leon Jaworski of Houston, to conduct a two-month investigation. During weeks of interrogations, Jaworski's investigators offered immunity to several soldiers who would agree to testify. Most refused, including Samuel Snow and Roy Montgomery. Five black soldiers agreed, however, to testify for the prosecution in exchange for immunity. Six decades later, all five were said to have had unrelated grudges against many of the men they accused.
Most Italian prisoners-of-war were unable to identify a single black soldier, citing the darkness and confusion. Two, however, offered confident identifications of dozens of the Americans, and Jaworski used those two as his main witnesses. Decades later, a review of the case found that both had been previously identified as unreliable security risks by officers of the Military Intelligence Corps.
As reports of the riot and lynching reached the Pentagon, General Elliot Cooke was sent to Seattle, charged with determining who, if anyone, had failed to prevent the riot and lynching. Cooke conducted an investigation before Jaworski had arrived. Cooke was not responsible for helping Jaworski with the criminal investigation, but Jaworski was given access to all of Cooke's interrogations and conclusions.
In a classified report to Virgil L. Peterson, the Inspector General, Cooke concluded that the Fort Lawton commander had botched the initial criminal investigation, recommended Branson's demotion and/or reassignment, and ordered that Private Lomax be court-martialed for abandoning his post during the riot and lynching.
Defense

Howard Noyd (2009)
After weeks of investigation, Jaworski decided to charge 43 soldiers with rioting; all the suspects were African American and charged with a crime with a maximum penalty of life imprisonment. Three of the men – Luther Larkin (1921–1948), Arthur Hurks (1921–1991) and William Jones (1924–1992) – were also charged with first-degree murder. They faced a possible death sentence. This was the largest number of defendants in a single United States Army trial during World War II.
The defendants were provided two lawyers to represent each of them and they were given 10 days to prepare their cases. William Beeks, the lead defense attorney, later was appointed as a federal judge. He was assisted by Howard Noyd, a former football player from Iowa.
Without much time, the defense lawyers decided to concentrate on trying to save their clients from the first-degree murder charges.
Trial
The nine-member court-martial, all white officers, convened on November 16, 1944. Trial was held six days a week and all day on Thanksgiving.
On December 8, 1944, Beeks discovered for the first time that Jaworski had gained access to General Cooke's lengthy confidential report. Citing concerns about wartime security, Jaworski repeatedly refused to give the report to the defense, despite a prosecutorial obligation to do so. The court refused to intervene. Beeks never learned about Cooke's criticism of Branson, Lomax and others, information which would likely have discredited most of Jaworski's main witnesses. Jaworski called Lomax to testify against the black soldiers.
Verdicts
After five weeks in what was the longest United States Army court-martial of World War II, the court found 28 of the 43 defendants guilty of rioting. The found two: Luther Larkin and William Jones, guilty of manslaughter. Sentences ranged from six months to 25 years at penal labour. All but one defendant were issued dishonorable discharges at the completion of their prison sentences.
Because it was a capital case, an automatic appeal was sent to the U.S. Army's Board of Review. The appeals were rejected without elaboration.
In 1945, at the end of World War II, President Harry Truman was eager to establish a reputation of being helpful to veterans. He began issuing annual "Christmas clemencies", reducing the sentences of thousands of soldiers, including the Fort Lawton defendants. By 1949, the last Fort Lawton defendant left prison.
Investigative journalism
In 1986, journalist Jack Hamann found Guglielmo Olivotto's headstone in the Fort Lawton cemetery. Hamann undertook months of research, most of it relying on secondary sources, and produced a special one-hour documentary program for Seattle's NBC affiliate, KING-TV. The program raised some questions about the prosecution, but did not offer any substantial evidence to refute Jaworski's case.[citation needed] It won an Emmy Award.
In 2001, Hamann and his wife, Leslie Hamann, began a four-year effort to locate primary sources, including documents and witnesses. During several weeks of research at the National Archives in College Park, Maryland, the Hamanns came across General Cooke's newly declassified report. The revelations in that report became the basis for their book, On American Soil: How Justice Became a Casualty of World War II. In 2006, Investigative Reporters and Editors, Inc. (IRE) named On American Soil the nation's best investigative book of the year.[citation needed]
U.S. Congress
On July 1, 2005, U.S. Rep Jim McDermott (D-WA) introduced HR 3174, a bill demanding that the United States Army reopen the Fort Lawton case, based on the allegations made in On American Soil. The bill, with dozens of co-sponsors, remained in the House Armed Services Committee until the chairman of that committee, U.S. Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-CA) received a letter from constituent Julianna Hamann, mother of author Jack Hamann. After committee staff vetted the book, Rep. McDermott and Rep. Hunter agreed on June 8, 2006, to exercise a Congressional privilege allowing them to insist that the U.S. Army Board for Correction of Military Records (ABCMR) review the convictions.[citation needed]
U.S. Army Board for Correction of Military Records
On October 26, 2007, the ABCMR ruled unanimously that Leon Jaworski had committed "egregious error" in his prosecution of the Fort Lawton case, particularly by refusing to make the Cooke Report available to the defense. The board, calling the trial "fundamentally unfair", overturned the convictions. They ordered that defendants be issued retroactive honorable discharges. In addition, the surviving defendants – or the estates of those who have since died – were deemed entitled to "all rights, privileges and property lost as a result of the convictions", including "all due pay and allowances".
$725 check
On November 29, 2007, Samuel Snow received a check for $725. An army spokesman explained that the Board's order was so unusual and sweeping that army regulations contained no provision for payment of interest in such cases. The small checks received by Snow and by the families of other Fort Lawton veterans resulted in stories about the supposed unfairness and inadequacy of the regulations.[1]
On January 23, 2008, Rep. Jim McDermott introduced HR 5130 in the House, authorizing the U.S. Army to pay interest on the Fort Lawton awards. Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL) introduced companion bill S 2548 in the Senate. The bills were approved by the Armed Services Committees of both houses, and were supported by testimony from Secretary of the Army Pete Geren. He described Snow's small check as "a travesty of justice."[citation needed]
On October 14, 2008, President George W. Bush signed the Duncan Hunter National Defense Authorization Act for FY 2009. The bill included the legislation authorizing the Army to add tens of thousands of dollars interest to the back pay due to the Fort Lawton veterans.
Tribute
By the summer of 2008, the army had located two living defendants (Samuel Snow of Florida and Roy Montgomery of Illinois), plus the families of ten others who had since died. King County Executive Ron Sims and Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels organized a tribute to the Fort Lawton defendants and surviving families. It featured a dinner, a parade, a formal military ceremony, and a Catholic mass honoring the memory of Guglielmo Olivotto. At the military ceremony, Assistant Army Secretary Ronald James offered a tribute to the wrongly convicted men, including an apology and the presentation of belated honorable discharges.
Samuel Snow
During the morning of the Seattle military ceremony, Samuel Snow became ill. Hours later, his family brought his honorable discharge to his hospital bedside, where he held it to his chest and smiled broadly. That same evening, he died of heart failure, with his wife and son at his side.
Snow's death was worldwide news. His funeral in Leesburg, Florida, drew hundreds of mourners; he received a burial with full military honors.
Roy Montgomery
Roy Montgomery did not attend the Seattle ceremony, so Assistant Army Secretary Ronald James went to his home in Illinois to present a personal apology and hand-deliver his back pay. Montgomery responded, "This is a great satisfaction. Now I can forget about the whole thing. That's all I ever wanted to do." On December 6, 2012, Roy Laine Montgomery died at the age of 91, survived by one daughter [Lynda Gill] and three grandsons [Kendall, Keith and Kevin] and numerous great-grandchildren.[2]
See also
Port Chicago disaster – 1944 court-martial of 50 African-American Navy men for refusing unsafe munitions loading work following a deadly explosion.
Agana race riot – December 1944 conflict between African-American sailors and white Marines in Guam.
George N. Crocker – part of the court-martial resulting from the riot.
African-American mutinies in the United States Armed Forces
Notes
Some resources (including Guglieamo Olivotto at Find a Grave) spell his name Guglieamo Olivotto.
References
Jack Hamann media
Ken Armstrong (December 9, 2012). "Roy Montgomery, wrongly convicted in POW's lynching, dies at 91". Seattle Times. Retrieved December 9, 2012.
Books
Hamann, Jack (2007). On American Soil: How Justice Became a Casualty of World War II. Seattle: University of Washington Press. ISBN 0-295-98705-7.
Moreo, Dominic W. (2004). Riot at Fort Lawton, 1944. Lincoln, Nebraska: iUniverse. ISBN 0-595-66254-4.
Media
Yardley, William (October 28, 2007). "1944 Conviction of Black G.I.'s Is Ruled Flawed". The New York Times.
Yardley, William (December 12, 2007). "Army Pays $725 in Set-Aside World War II Case". The New York Times.
Yardley, William (July 30, 2008). "Wrongly convicted WWII vet dies after apology". The New York Times.
Yardley, William (October 22, 2008). "Back pay for soldier's widow". The New York Times.
Murphy, Kim (July 27, 2008). "Justice, 64 years later". The Los Angeles Times.
Fredrix, Emily (January 20, 2008). "Court-martial voided, late black WWII veteran honored at his gravesite" (NEWSPAPER ARTICLE). Boston Globe. Retrieved 2008-01-22.
MacIntosh, Heather, Priscilla Long, and David Wilma (July 6, 2005). "Riot involving African American soldiers occurs at Fort Lawton and an Italian POW is lynched on August 14, 1944" (ESSAY). HistoryLink.org. Retrieved 2007-10-28.
Martin, Jonathan (October 26, 2007). "U.S. Army overturns convictions of Fort Lawton soldiers court-martialed in 1944 after riot, lynching" (NEWSPAPER ARTICLE). Seattle Times. Retrieved 2007-10-28.
Ortega, Tony (April 22, 2008). "A Staten Island Trombonist Breaks a 64-Year Silence About a Military Race Riot" (NEWSPAPER ARTICLE). Village Voice. Retrieved 2008-04-23.
External links
Guglieamo Olivotto at Find a Grave
Home | News | All India
Hashimpura Massacre: 'Did No One Kill the 42 Men?' A Question After a Court Verdict
Written by Niha Masih | Updated: Mar 23, 2015 00:17 IST

Meerut/New Delhi:
Nearly three decades after 42 Muslim men were killed in Meerut in western Uttar Pradesh, a trial court in Delhi acquitted 16 policemen accused in the case, giving them the "benefit of doubt". Known as the Hashimpura massacre, the case dates back to 1987 when personnel of the Provincial Armed Constabulary or the PAC picked up men from the Hashimpura locality during communal riots in the city and allegedly shot them dead.
The court verdict has reopened wounds of the few who survived.
Recounting the horror, 42-year-old Zulfikar Nasir says he was picked up by the police like other men of the locality and bundled into a truck. He was barely 15 then. Mr Nasir alleged that the police then shot everyone in cold blood.
"Two people died before me. I was hit as well but the bullet hit me in the arm pit. I fell and pretended to be dead. They threw me in the canal with other bodies, from where I escaped," he said.
After a long-drawn legal battle, 16 accused policemen were acquitted by a Delhi court on Saturday for "want of sufficient evidence regarding their identity".
The verdict has also shocked Jamaluddin who lost his 21-year-old son in the incident. "It is being said that the accused policemen could not be identified. I want to ask how could 15-16-year-olds, who were trying to save their lives, identify the accused 20 years later?"
19 policemen were initially chargesheeted by Uttar Pradesh's Crime Branch-Criminal Investigation Department (CB-CID) in 1996. Three died during the trial. In 2002, the case was transferred from a court in Ghaziabad to Delhi by the Supreme Court on a petition filed by the families of the victims. It was only in 2006 that charges were framed against the accused.
"We cross-examined and showed that no evidence links the accused to it. The judgement is based on that," said Defence lawyer Sellar Khan, who represented four of the 16 accused.
But VN Rai, the then Superintendent of Police in Ghaziabad who filed the first FIR in the case, blamed the probe agency for the acquittal which he said was a result of a "shoddy probe".
The victims are expected to file an appeal against the verdict after the detailed order is out later this week. An angry Zulfikar asks, "Did no one kill 42 men in 1987?"

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क्यों आम बेच रहीं हैं बीजेपी के वरिष्ठ नेता करिया मुंडा की बेटी?
by Taboola
SECTION
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Lawton_Riot
Fort Lawton Riot

Headstone of Pvt. Guglielmo Olivotto at Fort Lawton military cemetery, Seattle
Date August 14, 1944
Location Fort Lawton, Washington, United States (U.S.)
Participants United States Army soldiers and Italian prisoners of war (POW)
Outcome 1 Italian POW killed
28 U.S. soldiers convicted and imprisoned
The Fort Lawton Riot refers to a series of events in August 1944 starting with a violent conflict between U.S. soldiers and Italian prisoners of war at Fort Lawton in Seattle, Washington during World War II. After the riot, prisoner Guglielmo Olivotto was found dead.[nb 1] This led to the court-martial of 43 soldiers, all of them African Americans.
In 2005, the book On American Soil helped to convince the U.S. Army Board for Correction of Military Records that prosecutor Leon Jaworski had committed "egregious error," and that all convictions should be reversed. President George W. Bush signed legislation allowing the Army to disburse back pay to the defendants or their survivors.
Contents
Riot
Investigation
Defense
Trial
Verdicts
Investigative journalism
U.S. Congress
U.S. Army Board for Correction of Military Records
$725 check
Tribute
Samuel Snow
Roy Montgomery
See also
Notes
References
Books
Media
External links
Riot
The night of August 14, 1944, an African-American port company at Fort Lawton, Seattle was under orders to ship out to the war zone the next morning. Just after 11 p.m, an intoxicated black soldier and his three companions crossed paths with three Italians, who may have also been drinking. Words were exchanged, the black soldier rushed forward, and with one punch, an Italian knocked the American out cold.
The Italians retreated to adjacent barracks, but the call went out about the confrontation. A number of black soldiers, including Pvt. Samuel Snow, ran after the Italians, wielding boards from a fence that they broke down. The Italians, who were in their bunks for the night, heard rocks and bricks being thrown against their windows in their dark quarters. They assumed they were being attacked and began running, some jumping out of windows. In the melee, both Italians and United States soldiers were injured. Hearing the commotion, and responding to a 'whistle' calling them to defend their fellow soldiers, dozens of black soldiers came out of their barracks. A rumor began that one American was dead. (This was untrue.) Assuming they were being attacked, dozens of black soldiers headed into the Italian area, armed with rocks, fence posts and a couple of knives.[citation needed]
Private Clyde Lomax, a white member of the Military Police Corps, was responsible for patrolling the area known as the "Colored Area," and was on the scene almost immediately. He loaded the most severely injured American into his jeep, but delayed transporting him to the hospital. Lomax failed to request back up from fellow MPs or to notify the chain of command of the severity of the situation.[citation needed]
More than forty minutes passed before a contingent of MPs arrived. By then, dozens of men were injured. The most seriously injured were all Italian prisoners-of-war; they were transported to hospitals for treatment. One Italian spent 16 months recovering from his injuries.[citation needed]
The military policemen restored order without taking anyone into custody. Later, they claimed it had been too dark to identify any of the participants in the riot. The next morning, Lomax, accompanied by a black MP, discovered the body of prisoner Guglielmo Olivotto, hanging from a noose on the obstacle course.[citation needed]
Investigation
By sunset on the day Olivotto's body was discovered, Colonel Harry Branson, Fort Lawton's commanding officer, had ordered all evidence destroyed. No fingerprints were secured, no footprints saved, no weapons properly catalogued. When Branson tried to ship the black soldiers to San Francisco that same day, he was countermanded after a subordinate reported his actions to the Pentagon.
The riot and lynching was front page news in Seattle, and became a major story across the United States. The United States Army sent its best young prosecutor, Leon Jaworski of Houston, to conduct a two-month investigation. During weeks of interrogations, Jaworski's investigators offered immunity to several soldiers who would agree to testify. Most refused, including Samuel Snow and Roy Montgomery. Five black soldiers agreed, however, to testify for the prosecution in exchange for immunity. Six decades later, all five were said to have had unrelated grudges against many of the men they accused.
Most Italian prisoners-of-war were unable to identify a single black soldier, citing the darkness and confusion. Two, however, offered confident identifications of dozens of the Americans, and Jaworski used those two as his main witnesses. Decades later, a review of the case found that both had been previously identified as unreliable security risks by officers of the Military Intelligence Corps.
As reports of the riot and lynching reached the Pentagon, General Elliot Cooke was sent to Seattle, charged with determining who, if anyone, had failed to prevent the riot and lynching. Cooke conducted an investigation before Jaworski had arrived. Cooke was not responsible for helping Jaworski with the criminal investigation, but Jaworski was given access to all of Cooke's interrogations and conclusions.
In a classified report to Virgil L. Peterson, the Inspector General, Cooke concluded that the Fort Lawton commander had botched the initial criminal investigation, recommended Branson's demotion and/or reassignment, and ordered that Private Lomax be court-martialed for abandoning his post during the riot and lynching.
Defense

Howard Noyd (2009)
After weeks of investigation, Jaworski decided to charge 43 soldiers with rioting; all the suspects were African American and charged with a crime with a maximum penalty of life imprisonment. Three of the men – Luther Larkin (1921–1948), Arthur Hurks (1921–1991) and William Jones (1924–1992) – were also charged with first-degree murder. They faced a possible death sentence. This was the largest number of defendants in a single United States Army trial during World War II.
The defendants were provided two lawyers to represent each of them and they were given 10 days to prepare their cases. William Beeks, the lead defense attorney, later was appointed as a federal judge. He was assisted by Howard Noyd, a former football player from Iowa.
Without much time, the defense lawyers decided to concentrate on trying to save their clients from the first-degree murder charges.
Trial
The nine-member court-martial, all white officers, convened on November 16, 1944. Trial was held six days a week and all day on Thanksgiving.
On December 8, 1944, Beeks discovered for the first time that Jaworski had gained access to General Cooke's lengthy confidential report. Citing concerns about wartime security, Jaworski repeatedly refused to give the report to the defense, despite a prosecutorial obligation to do so. The court refused to intervene. Beeks never learned about Cooke's criticism of Branson, Lomax and others, information which would likely have discredited most of Jaworski's main witnesses. Jaworski called Lomax to testify against the black soldiers.
Verdicts
After five weeks in what was the longest United States Army court-martial of World War II, the court found 28 of the 43 defendants guilty of rioting. The found two: Luther Larkin and William Jones, guilty of manslaughter. Sentences ranged from six months to 25 years at penal labour. All but one defendant were issued dishonorable discharges at the completion of their prison sentences.
Because it was a capital case, an automatic appeal was sent to the U.S. Army's Board of Review. The appeals were rejected without elaboration.
In 1945, at the end of World War II, President Harry Truman was eager to establish a reputation of being helpful to veterans. He began issuing annual "Christmas clemencies", reducing the sentences of thousands of soldiers, including the Fort Lawton defendants. By 1949, the last Fort Lawton defendant left prison.
Investigative journalism
In 1986, journalist Jack Hamann found Guglielmo Olivotto's headstone in the Fort Lawton cemetery. Hamann undertook months of research, most of it relying on secondary sources, and produced a special one-hour documentary program for Seattle's NBC affiliate, KING-TV. The program raised some questions about the prosecution, but did not offer any substantial evidence to refute Jaworski's case.[citation needed] It won an Emmy Award.
In 2001, Hamann and his wife, Leslie Hamann, began a four-year effort to locate primary sources, including documents and witnesses. During several weeks of research at the National Archives in College Park, Maryland, the Hamanns came across General Cooke's newly declassified report. The revelations in that report became the basis for their book, On American Soil: How Justice Became a Casualty of World War II. In 2006, Investigative Reporters and Editors, Inc. (IRE) named On American Soil the nation's best investigative book of the year.[citation needed]
U.S. Congress
On July 1, 2005, U.S. Rep Jim McDermott (D-WA) introduced HR 3174, a bill demanding that the United States Army reopen the Fort Lawton case, based on the allegations made in On American Soil. The bill, with dozens of co-sponsors, remained in the House Armed Services Committee until the chairman of that committee, U.S. Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-CA) received a letter from constituent Julianna Hamann, mother of author Jack Hamann. After committee staff vetted the book, Rep. McDermott and Rep. Hunter agreed on June 8, 2006, to exercise a Congressional privilege allowing them to insist that the U.S. Army Board for Correction of Military Records (ABCMR) review the convictions.[citation needed]
U.S. Army Board for Correction of Military Records
On October 26, 2007, the ABCMR ruled unanimously that Leon Jaworski had committed "egregious error" in his prosecution of the Fort Lawton case, particularly by refusing to make the Cooke Report available to the defense. The board, calling the trial "fundamentally unfair", overturned the convictions. They ordered that defendants be issued retroactive honorable discharges. In addition, the surviving defendants – or the estates of those who have since died – were deemed entitled to "all rights, privileges and property lost as a result of the convictions", including "all due pay and allowances".
$725 check
On November 29, 2007, Samuel Snow received a check for $725. An army spokesman explained that the Board's order was so unusual and sweeping that army regulations contained no provision for payment of interest in such cases. The small checks received by Snow and by the families of other Fort Lawton veterans resulted in stories about the supposed unfairness and inadequacy of the regulations.[1]
On January 23, 2008, Rep. Jim McDermott introduced HR 5130 in the House, authorizing the U.S. Army to pay interest on the Fort Lawton awards. Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL) introduced companion bill S 2548 in the Senate. The bills were approved by the Armed Services Committees of both houses, and were supported by testimony from Secretary of the Army Pete Geren. He described Snow's small check as "a travesty of justice."[citation needed]
On October 14, 2008, President George W. Bush signed the Duncan Hunter National Defense Authorization Act for FY 2009. The bill included the legislation authorizing the Army to add tens of thousands of dollars interest to the back pay due to the Fort Lawton veterans.
Tribute
By the summer of 2008, the army had located two living defendants (Samuel Snow of Florida and Roy Montgomery of Illinois), plus the families of ten others who had since died. King County Executive Ron Sims and Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels organized a tribute to the Fort Lawton defendants and surviving families. It featured a dinner, a parade, a formal military ceremony, and a Catholic mass honoring the memory of Guglielmo Olivotto. At the military ceremony, Assistant Army Secretary Ronald James offered a tribute to the wrongly convicted men, including an apology and the presentation of belated honorable discharges.
Samuel Snow
During the morning of the Seattle military ceremony, Samuel Snow became ill. Hours later, his family brought his honorable discharge to his hospital bedside, where he held it to his chest and smiled broadly. That same evening, he died of heart failure, with his wife and son at his side.
Snow's death was worldwide news. His funeral in Leesburg, Florida, drew hundreds of mourners; he received a burial with full military honors.
Roy Montgomery
Roy Montgomery did not attend the Seattle ceremony, so Assistant Army Secretary Ronald James went to his home in Illinois to present a personal apology and hand-deliver his back pay. Montgomery responded, "This is a great satisfaction. Now I can forget about the whole thing. That's all I ever wanted to do." On December 6, 2012, Roy Laine Montgomery died at the age of 91, survived by one daughter [Lynda Gill] and three grandsons [Kendall, Keith and Kevin] and numerous great-grandchildren.[2]
See also
Port Chicago disaster – 1944 court-martial of 50 African-American Navy men for refusing unsafe munitions loading work following a deadly explosion.
Agana race riot – December 1944 conflict between African-American sailors and white Marines in Guam.
George N. Crocker – part of the court-martial resulting from the riot.
African-American mutinies in the United States Armed Forces
Notes
Some resources (including Guglieamo Olivotto at Find a Grave) spell his name Guglieamo Olivotto.
References
Jack Hamann media
Ken Armstrong (December 9, 2012). "Roy Montgomery, wrongly convicted in POW's lynching, dies at 91". Seattle Times. Retrieved December 9, 2012.
Books
Hamann, Jack (2007). On American Soil: How Justice Became a Casualty of World War II. Seattle: University of Washington Press. ISBN 0-295-98705-7.
Moreo, Dominic W. (2004). Riot at Fort Lawton, 1944. Lincoln, Nebraska: iUniverse. ISBN 0-595-66254-4.
Media
Yardley, William (October 28, 2007). "1944 Conviction of Black G.I.'s Is Ruled Flawed". The New York Times.
Yardley, William (December 12, 2007). "Army Pays $725 in Set-Aside World War II Case". The New York Times.
Yardley, William (July 30, 2008). "Wrongly convicted WWII vet dies after apology". The New York Times.
Yardley, William (October 22, 2008). "Back pay for soldier's widow". The New York Times.
Murphy, Kim (July 27, 2008). "Justice, 64 years later". The Los Angeles Times.
Fredrix, Emily (January 20, 2008). "Court-martial voided, late black WWII veteran honored at his gravesite" (NEWSPAPER ARTICLE). Boston Globe. Retrieved 2008-01-22.
MacIntosh, Heather, Priscilla Long, and David Wilma (July 6, 2005). "Riot involving African American soldiers occurs at Fort Lawton and an Italian POW is lynched on August 14, 1944" (ESSAY). HistoryLink.org. Retrieved 2007-10-28.
Martin, Jonathan (October 26, 2007). "U.S. Army overturns convictions of Fort Lawton soldiers court-martialed in 1944 after riot, lynching" (NEWSPAPER ARTICLE). Seattle Times. Retrieved 2007-10-28.
Ortega, Tony (April 22, 2008). "A Staten Island Trombonist Breaks a 64-Year Silence About a Military Race Riot" (NEWSPAPER ARTICLE). Village Voice. Retrieved 2008-04-23.
External links
Guglieamo Olivotto at Find a Grave
www.dailyo.in/politics/hashimpura-massacre-meerut-pac-congress-riots-muslim-uttar-pradesh-police/story/1/2705.html
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