ALI MATAAN ALLAH U NAXARIISTO.KILLED BY INJUSTICE

Daily chitchat.

Moderators: Moderators, Junior Moderators

Forum rules
This General Forum is for general discussions from daily chitchat to more serious discussions among Somalinet Forums members. Please do not use it as your Personal Message center (PM). If you want to contact a particular person or a group of people, please use the PM feature. If you want to contact the moderators, pls PM them. If you insist leaving a public message for the mods or other members, it will be deleted.
User avatar
afisoone
SomaliNet Super
SomaliNet Super
Posts: 5509
Joined: Wed Jul 22, 2009 9:46 pm
Location: We all want to become president even though Amisom controls Mogadishu

ALI MATAAN ALLAH U NAXARIISTO.KILLED BY INJUSTICE

Post by afisoone »

Image
Mahmood Mattan was cleared of murder 46 years after he was hanged. His family explains why compensation will never be enough

This week a headstone was placed on the grave of Mahmood Mattan in a corner of Western Cemetery, Cardiff; the epitaph reads simply "Killed by injustice". Mattan's widow and his son Omar watched the proceedings quietly and then walked away to try to move on with their lives. But they cannot forget - and say they will never forgive.

On the morning of September 3, 1952, Mattan, a young Somali sailor, was taken from his cell at Cardiff prison, marched to the gallows and hanged for a murder he didn't commit. Seven weeks earlier, in a parody of a trial, he had been found guilty of slitting the throat of Lily Volpert, a Cardiff shopkeeper. The hearing at Glamorganshire Summer Assize in Swansea was so steeped in racial bigotry that even Mattan's defence solicitor described him as a "half-child of nature; a semi-civilised savage".

Despite his limited grasp of English, he did not have an interpreter and the jury did not know that the prosecution witness on whom the case hinged had altered his statement and been rewarded for giving evidence. It took 46 years and a dogged family campaign before the Appeal Court overturned Mattan's conviction and allowed his Welsh widow, Laura, to exhume his quicklimed body from its felon's grave at Cardiff jail and rebury it in consecrated ground.

Recently it emerged that the Home Office had paid compensation of about £700,000 (not £1.4 million as was widely reported, say the family), which is being shared four ways between Laura and the couple's three sons, David, 53, Omar, 51, and Mervyn, 50.
AhmedBoqor
SomaliNet Heavyweight
SomaliNet Heavyweight
Posts: 2986
Joined: Thu Jul 28, 2011 3:50 am

Re: ALI MATAAN ALLAH U NAXARIISTO.KILLED BY INJUSTICE

Post by AhmedBoqor »

Wait, Somalis lived in the UK during the 50s? thats news to me.
Locked
  • Similar Topics
    Replies
    Views
    Last post

Return to “General - General Discussions”