1 am innocent' Davis

Workers Press no. 728, 1 April 1972 · scan page 13

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'THIS IS a small firm and small number of people 1 'But if it were a big factory you might want 2,000 police › get them out.

pension did not walk out of the pension did not walk out Make the Tories resign.! ON THE first day of her trial at San Jose, California, Angela Davis dismissed as 'utterly fantastic, utterly absurd' charges that she masterminded the Marin County Courthouse shoot-out in August 1970.

28-year-old Miss former philosophy lecturer at California University, is standing trial on murder, kidnapping and conspiracy charges arising from the shooting.

Prosecution alleges that Jonathan Jackson and three San Quentin prison inmates seized five hostages at Marin County Courthouse threatened to kill them-including Judge Haleyunless the three 'Soledad Brothers' were set free.

Miss Davis opened her own defence by saying: "The evidence will show that I am totally innocent of all the charges against me' She added that the prosecution had deliberately set out 'to transform the character of the case' by claiming that she was not interested in politics and the conditions of all the prisoners at San Quentin but was motivated only by her alleged love for George Jackson.

Miss Davis described the prosecution's case 'conjecture, guesswork and speculation'. She denied having anything to do with the Marin County Courthouse shooting.

She claimed she bought guns and bullets and used Jonathan Jackson as a bodyguard against threats to her life by white extremists.

The 'trumped up' charges against her, she told the court, were the logical outcome of a harrassment campaign by California governor Ronald Reagan and the University of California Regents who dismissed her in 1969 because she was a communist.