6B
Thursday, Jaunary 19, 1995
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Malcolm X's daughter professes innocence
Lawyers, friends say accusation is part of conspiracy
The Associated Press
ST. PAUL, Minn. — Malcolm X's daughter pleaded not guilty yesterday to trying to kill Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan. Her mother, meanwhile, denied she had raised her six daughters to hate her late husband's rival.
"Iread in one magazine that I probably had fed her a steady diet to dislike Farrakhan, which is absolutely untrue," said Betty Shabaz, a college administrator in New York City, after the arraignment.
Last week's indictment of Quibilah Shabaz on charges she hired a hit man to kill Farrakhan, a former rival of her slain father, has been criticized as a set up by Shabaz's friends and relatives and many other Blacks.
Defense lawyers say the 34-year-old Shabazz was lured into the alleged plot by a childhood friend, identified in media reports as Michael Fitzpatrick, who was a longtime government informant.
The Star Tribune of Minneapolis reported that an undercover videotape indicated Shabazz raised objections to Fitzpatrick's plan and was worried others would be hurt.
"He talks at length, and she listens
She's not pleased. She's coming up with objections, reasons why he shouldn't do it," the newspaper quoted an unidentified federal official as saving.
With longtime civil rights lawyer William Kunstler standing by her side, Shabazz quietly pleaded not guilty. She could get up to 90 years in prison and $2.25 million in fines if convicted.
Shabazz has been free on $10,000 bail since she surrendered to authorities last week. Trial was set for March 27 in Minneapolis.
A former resident of New York City, Shabazz moved to the Twin Cities in September with her son.
Prosecutors have refused to comment on a possible motive for the alleged plot, but Malcolm X's family has long believed Farrakhan had a hand in the 1965 assassination.
Qubilah was four years old when she and three of her five sisters watched their father gunned down before a crowd of supporters in New York City on Feb. 21, 1965 — a year after Malcolm X had broken with the Nation of Islam. Three Black Muslims were convicted of the murder.
Kunstler maintains Shabazz's indictment is part of a government conspiracy to discredit Black leaders.
"I think what we will find out from this bizarre case is that there was set in motion a plan to cause the assassination, if possible, of Louis Farrakhan, but it was a plan set by the Bureau, the FBI," he told Minnesota
Outside the courthouse, a small group of demonstrators hoisted a green and red banner proclaiming, "The Real Hitmen: The Feds."
Public Radio.
The banner had pictures of Malcolm X, Martin Luther King Jr. and Black Panther leader Fred Hampton, killed by police in Chicago in 1969.
Betty Shabazz would not comment on Farrakhan's statements but said, "I was totally surprised at the extent of his humanity."
On Tuesday, Farrakhan broke his silence on Shabazz's indictment. Speaking to followers in Chicago, Farrakhan reiterated his innocence in Malcolm X's killing and accused the government of trying to destroy Black unity.
Percy Sutton, a New York City lawyer who represents the Shabazz family, said entrapment was the essence of this case.
"At no time during the development of those children has Dr. Shabazz ever instilled in them any hate in anybody. Dr. Shabazz has borne her own pain," Sutton said.
In another development, Fitzpatrick told the Twin Cities Reader that Shabazz called him and asked him to kill Farrakhan. He said he had not heard from her in 16 years.
"My belief is that if someone comes to you and says, 'I want you, to do something', and you do nothing, and someone else does that thing, then the resulting aftermath is on your soul," Fitzpatrick told the weekly newspaper.
Rock history goes up for bid
The Associated Press
His bathroom sink, however, will be offered this week, during the biggest rock' n' roll auction ever.
NEW YORK — Goin' on the rock block: Elvis' musicians union card, Jerry Lee's passport, Paul's guitar — everything but John's kitchen sink.
The plumber who renovated Lennon's apartment hopes to get $3,000 to $5,000 for the porcelain memento.
Starting today, these and about 5,000 other items, including posters, records, guitars and photographs will be knocked down in a four-day extravaganza.
"There have been rock auctions with a couple of hundred lots and maybe a Michael Jackson glove and a few other interesting items," said Arlan Ettinger, president of Guernsey's auction house, yesterday. "But this is many times larger than anything else like it."
In addition to Jerry Lee Lewis'
passport and Presley's union card, some of the more intriguing items for sale in the ballroom of the Puck Building include:
—The first Fender electric guitar, a prototype built in 1948 by Leo Fender and George Fullerton. It is expected to bring perhaps as much as $500,000.
A Stratocaster electric guitar that was smashed by Kurt Cobain and bears the late rocker's blood. The instrument was given to a fan who was pulled onstage during a Nirvana concert in Jacksonville, Fla., in 1993. It was wrecked by Cobain and the fan and later signed by all three band members. The bloodstain on the white pickguard, according to Guernsey's, is Cobain's. (Price estimate: $10,000-$15,000.)
—The earliest known Elvis acetate, "I'll Never Stand in Your Way," recorded in 1954 at the Memphis Recording Service. Presley supposedly paid $4 to make it. Bidders may pay at least $200,000 to own it.
A Nativity scene displayed at Graceland, Elvis' Memphis estate, in 1964. It includes a stable with a 9-foot ceiling and slightly larger-than-life statues of Mary, Joseph, the Three Wise Men, two shepherds, assorted animals and one angel. No Jesus, though. ($20,000-$40,000).
Ettinger said word of the auction brought in all sorts of unsolicited, last-minute offerings.
—Ringo Starr's customized 1957 Chevrolet Bel Aire coupe. ($40,000-$50,000.)
On Tuesday night, he said, the gallery got a call from upstate New York. When the item was brought yesterday, he said, "It gave me goosebumps. It summed up, to me, what the '60s were all about."
He walked over to a display case and pointed to an old, peeling, orange and blue sign with a picture of a Guernsey cow and these words: YASGUR'S DAIRY FARM, Bethel N.Y. That's where Woodstock was held.
THE NEWS in brief
Archaeologists discover cave paintings from Paleolithic era
Paris
Archaeologists inching through a cave suddenly found themselves amid a stunning art show — 300 glacial-era wall paintings of animals, a 20,000-year old display that exerts声 eclipses the cave at Lascaux.
The paintings, discovered Dec. 24 in caves of the Ardeche River canyon in southern France, depict horses, lions, bison, bears, panthers, mammoths, owls, wild oxen, wild goats and woolly rhinoceroses.
"We have there a selection of animals infinitely more varied than the other sites and with exceptional features," said Genevieve Martin, a specialist for the Archaeological Service of the Rhone-Alpes region.
The Culture Ministry, announcing the find yesterday, called it "the only totally intact and ornate network of caves from the Paleolithic era."
The caves near Combe d'Arc are about 1,500 feet deep in the Ardeche, known for its grottos and subterranean rivers. It is 260 miles south of Paris.
The discovery was not announced until yesterday so the site could be protected. The caves, yet to be named, were quickly protected by a heavy door and TV surveillance.
The ministry said it plans to show the paintings to the public using video, CD-ROM or other multimedia techniques.
Man sentenced in Hasidic killing
NEW YORK
State Supreme Court Justice Harold Rothwax said he would recommend that 29-year-old Rashid Baz never gets parole.
A Lebanese immigrant who fired bullets at a van full of Hasidic Jewish youths as it crossed the Brooklyn Bridge was sentenced Wednesday to 141 years in prison for killing one and wounding three.
On Dec. 1, a jury rejected Baz's claim that his childhood in Beirut produced post-traumatic stress syndrome that brought on the March 1 attack.
Baz, a cab driver, was convicted of murder and 14 counts of attempted murder.
Baz fired on the van from his cab with a 9mm pistol.
Fifteen young men were in the van. All wore the black garb of ultra-Orthodox Lubavitcher Jews. They were returning from a hospital visit to the Lubavitcher's leader, Rebbe Menachem Schneerson. He died in June.
The judge took to heart the plea of Devorah Halberstam, the mother of the slain boy, 16-year-old Aaron Halberstam.
"This killer must spend the rest of his life behind bars," said Halberstam, who called her son "a gem of a human being."
Defense attorney Eric Sears dismissed Halberstam's suggestion that the crime was linked to fundamentalist terrorism elsewhere in the world.
WASHINGTON
WASHINGTON—The Senate Judiciary Committee made another stab at approving a balanced budget amendment yesterday, meeting in an early session to duck under the parliamentary obstacle of a senior Democrat who opposes it.
Senior Democrat opposes amendment
In its first order of business, the committee voted 10-8 to exclude Social Security from future balanced budget calculations.
On Tuesday, Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va, used a Senate rule to break up the committee meeting and make his point that Republicans are erring by ignoring Democrats as they rush the constitutional amendment through Congress.
The little-used rule allows a single senator to stop a committee meeting that continues for more than two hours while the full Senate is in session.
The dispute clouded Republican hopes of moving the amendment toward passage by the end of the month and overshadowed the first success of the GOP-led Congress — passage Tuesday of the Congressional Accountability Act.
Byrd said it was the "height of arrogance" for Republicans to avoid providing Congress and the American public details on how they plan to cut the federal deficit as they move toward requiring a balanced budget by the year 2002.
In contrast to the partisan bickering in the Senate, the House with a 300-0 vote passed the first bill of the 104th Congress, which now goes to President Clinton for his signature.
NEW YORK
it's sex and death for the fruit fly
Pretty exciting stuff for a study of fruit flies.
The findings solve a mystery: Why do female fruit flies die younger if they have sex more often?
Scientific sleuths have uncovered a tale of sex, death and females sacrificed to male ambitions.
Blame it on the males, the study says.
Basically, a male fly is driven to have as many offspring as he can. That means he needs to fertilize as many of a mate's eggs as he can. But there's competition on the road to those eggs, because female flies collect and store sperm from several different suitors.
So, he slips his sexual partners more than sperm during sex. His semen has additives that remove or destroy rival sperm. And the additives make female flies less interested in sex for a day or two, to give his own sperm a clear field.
"It's a sort of paternity insurance," says researcher Tracey Chapman of University College London.
But it's the female who pays the premium. These additives make her die younger, the study shows.
Chapman and co-authors provide the details in Thurs day's issue of the journal Nature.
FLINT, Mich
GM strike may affect entire country
Astrike that could cripple much of the U.S. auto industry within days broke out Wednesday at a General Motors Corp.plant that makes spark plugs, filters and other parts.
Some 6,800 workers at the AC Delco East complex walked out when talks broke off shortly before the 10 a.m. deadline set by the United Auto Workers. The plant also supplies parts to Ford Motor Co. and Chrysler Corp.
The union has complained that understaffing and overtime to meet booming demand for cars are creating dangerous and unhealthy working conditions. In addition, the UAW said outside contractors hired by GM threaten workers' jobs.
Similar complaints led to two GM strikes last year that interrupted the flow of parts and quickly forced other factories to close.
The UAW predicted that other plants in Flint would be affected within a day. Soon after, GM and other companies' plants around the country could feel the pinch.
"Within a week, it will go nationwide," said Jill Miron, chairwoman of executive board of UAW Local 651.
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