The following ”pieces of news“,
seen from and considered from
the Kunama people's perspectives:
Part 1:
Eritrean News – Assenna Back News  News  World 
Eritreans plead not guilty to U.S. airport fake bomb charges
Saturday, 20 August 2011 00:06
amanuel
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PHOENIX (Reuters) - Three Eritrean nationals pleaded not guilty on Friday to trying to sneak a fake bomb past a screening area at a Phoenix airport in what the FBI described as a possible test of security.
The trio, immigrants from the Horn of Africa nation, were charged with taking a package that simulated the appearance of an explosive device through Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport on August 5.
The court entered pleas of not guilty for Luwiza Laku Daman, Shullu Anguwi Gorado and Asa Shani, and set a trial for October 4. If convicted, they face a maximum penalty of five years in jail, a $250,000 fine, or both.
Daman was arrested at the airport after Transportation Security Administration officers X-rayed her carry-on bag and noticed an object which at first sight appeared to be an explosive, the FBI said in the complaint.
A criminal complaint described the object as a candy box with a cell phone attached. After investigators spoke to Daman, they traced the item to Gorado and Shani, who live in Phoenix, and arrested them in connection with the incident.
Daman, who lives in Des Moines, Iowa, traveled on July 29 to Phoenix for a wedding and said that while there she met a man named Jaffa, who turned out to be Gorado, the complaint said.
She said Gorado later gave her a package with a box of candy and a cellular telephone taped to it, and asked her to take it to Des Moines, according to the complaint.
Daman's flight reservation also was made through an e-mail account belonging to Gorado, despite her earlier contention that the e-mail address was hers, the complaint said.
When police went to the home of Gorado, he admitted that the candy box containing the Middle Eastern confection helva came from him but he said the cell phone was from Shani, the complaint stated
The FBI said that on the day Daman arrived in Phoenix, a similar incident "involving an object consisting of an electronic device taped to plastic containers filled with an organic substance" had occurred at a Memphis airport.
The complaint does not detail any other possible connection between the incidents in Phoenix and Memphis, nor does it accuse the Eritreans of being part of a militant group.
Daman told investigators that she was born in Eritrea, spent time in neighboring Ethiopia and had lived in the United States for four months in Portland before recently moving to Des Moines, the complaint states.
Police have said that Gorado and Shani were also from Eritrea, and previously described all three as refugees.
(Reporting by Tim Gaynor; Editing by Cynthia Johnston). Reuters
After having read the above “pieces of news”, on “www.assenna.com”, and heard other related news, gathered from our fellow-Kunama people, living in the USA, we have come to know that the persons, named:
1.- Luwisa Laku Daman,
2.- Shullu Anguwi Gorado and
3.- Asa Shani, very falsely accused “to have tried to sneak a fake bomb past a screening area at a Phoenix airport in what the FBI described as a possible test of security”, are indeed “Eritreans”, and “native Kunama persons”, who have recently been brought, by the US Government and Refugee authorities, from the “Shimelba refugee-camp”, in the Ethiopian State of Tigray, and settled in various US States.
The unfortunate situation, those three unlucky fellow-Kunama, have incurred themselves into, is the result of an innocent process that they, completely alien to the new world they are living in, and unaware of the security concerns of the authorities “at Phoenix airport”, have initiated and fallen into. The language difficulties and the fact that the Kunama do often, call themselves with nicknames, should also be taken into consideration, when checking their personal documents, asking questions and getting answers.
This Kunama web-site therefore, is stating that, Luwisa Laku Daman, Shullu, Anguwi Gorado and Asa Shani, used to their traditional ways of “receiving an object from a second person to carry it to a third person”, very common in their Kunama society, back home, have very innocently fallen and find themselves in very difficult situations and facing long legal processes, which are, not only shocking to their own culture and cultural heritage, but also deeply spreading painful worries, among their own fellow-Kunama refugees, living in the USA.
On behalf of those three Kunama individuals and of the entire Kunama community in the US, this Kunama web-site and its runners, are pleading to the US Government, to the its Refugee authorities, to Arizona State and “Phonix airport” authorities and to the legal experts, to release those innocently become “culprit”, Kunama individuals, drop “all charges”, and spare the entire Kunama refugee community in the USA, the plights they are already suffering, having left behind, their dear ones at home, and in states of continuous oppression persecutions and killings, by the present dictatorial and criminal Eritrean regime.
The K-ABIT, (Kunama Aimasa, Barka, Itana, Tika): August 25, 2011.
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