Contact: Refuse & Resist! Cleveland Chapter 216-556-3512
Statement by Robert Stauber
On Friday November 20th, I met with agents of the FBI with my attorney present. They wanted to question me. "Just a few simple questions," they said. "We want to close the book on this part of the investigation." If only you'd cooperate we'd be on our way.
Well I am here today Tuesday November 24th to ask the FBI a few simple questions.
Why did you pick out 2 activists who support women's right to abortion? Why are you pretending you didn't know that? Didn't you look in your files that you keep on us? (And probably everyone else out here today) Why has only our names surfaced from your "hundreds of interviews?" And if in fact, you are trying to find the attackers of abortion doctors why haven't you solved ONE case in the 5 years of these attacks which have resulted in the injury of 4 doctors and the killing of Dr. Slepian? And how come when Barnett Slepian's wife faxed the police a warning received from the National Abortion Federation about possible attacks from the "right to lifers" just 6 hours before he was killed, you did nothing? Why didn't you rush to defend his life? And how come on the day I refused to talk to you--sat right across the table from you--you issued to the Associated Press a statement that you didn't know our whereabouts? Why did you let this continue for days in the news? Why is my name a topic on the NY Times page on the internet? Why didn't you retract this from all the tv, radio, and papers? Why did you portray us essentially as fugitives because I wouldn't talk to you? Why have you associated us with the "right to lifer" James Charles Kopp when you know there is no connection? What are your motives here? Why have you harrassed our attorney Mark Kaiser -- going to his house on the day he told yu he wouldn't be there? Why was Malikee's phone mysteriously cut off yesterday? And why did you send Social Services to his house? Did you really think that your dirty tricks would succeed? Did you think we were going to give in and cooperate in your witch hunt into the peoples' movement? Did you think that we would go for your bully game?
Now some people have said that maybe the agents involed could be inexperienced and in their zeal to investigate they trampled our names and reputations. Well let me say this is defense of the FBI: I think the treatment we have recieved is in the finest tradition of what the FBI has always stood for. If there are any doubts let me resume some questions. "Just a few questions." How many people's careers and lives were ruined when people refused to talk to you in the '50's and refused to testify before the McCarthy hearings? Why does Leonard Peltier still sit in your jails when you know he didn't kill anyone? Why when you went to investigate the burning of the Black churches down south did you target the ministers of those churches? Why did you keep silent for 27 years while Geronimo Ji Jaga Pratt sat in prison for a crime you knew him to be innocent of? And what did you do with the phone tap records that prove his innocence? And now today why won't you let the 600 pages of your files on Mumia Abu-Jamal into the record of his appeal to prove he was a political target of you and this governmet?
So I would conclude my questioning now. I think that the Federal Bureau of Investigation has a lot more to (answer for) than me or Malikee. But just one more question. What makes you think that anybody should talk to you?
We are demanding that the FBI issue a statement that we, Robert Stuaber and Michael Gingerich, are NOT being sought and that there is no "be on the lookout" order in effect. That they make this known to police agencies nationwide and news agencies. And further that they have no reason to believe that we have information relating to the murder of Dr. Barnett Slepian.
[posted November 26, 1998]
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