Latest / Wrongful Conviction / #226 Jason Flom with Atif Rafay

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#226 Jason Flom with Atif Rafay · Wrongful Conviction

0:02
Speaker 1: The Reffays were a Pakistani Canadian immigrant family who moved
0:05
Speaker 1: to Bellevue, Washington, while their son, a Teif, finished his
0:08
Speaker 1: freshman year at Cornell University. A Chief's father, doctor Tariq Reffey,
0:13
Speaker 1: was a prominent and outspoken moderate Muslim with controversial views
0:16
Speaker 1: in their old community in Vancouver. While Atif and his
0:20
Speaker 1: best friend Sebastian Burns were out for the night on
0:23
Speaker 1: July twelfth, nineteen ninety four, Atif's father, mother, and sister
0:27
Speaker 1: were brutally bludgeoned to death in their home. Neighbors on
0:30
Speaker 1: either side of the Refe's home independently reported hearing the
0:33
Speaker 1: sounds of the murders at a time for which the
0:36
Speaker 1: boys whereabouts were well known. Their vocal operation revealed no
0:40
Speaker 1: incriminating evidence. DNA evidence mixed with doctor Refae's blood belonged
0:44
Speaker 1: to neither the victims nor a Tief or Sebastian. Yet,
0:48
Speaker 1: despite all of this, as well as compelling leads implicating
0:51
Speaker 1: religious extremists, the Bellevue police never took their focus off
0:56
Speaker 1: of a Tief at Sebastian. While the boys went up
0:59
Speaker 1: to live with Sebashian's parents in Canada, investigators enlisted the
1:03
Speaker 1: help of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police to perform an
1:06
Speaker 1: undercover sting called Mister Big that extracted two false confessions
1:11
Speaker 1: that were riddled with inconsistencies and contradictions. To solidify their case,
1:16
Speaker 1: they coerced a Tief and Sebastian's friend Jimmy Miyoshi to
1:19
Speaker 1: give a third inconsistent statement. When expert testimony on false confessions,
1:24
Speaker 1: as well as the evidence of other possible suspects were
1:27
Speaker 1: ruled inadmissible, the jury was only able to weigh the
1:30
Speaker 1: inconsistent false confessions against the physical evidence and eyewitness accounts
1:35
Speaker 1: that clearly contradicted them. This is wrongful conviction with Jason
1:40
Speaker 1: flamm Welcome back to wrongful Conviction with Jason Flamman. Wow,
1:59
Speaker 1: I mean, where to why you even start? Because this
2:02
Speaker 1: case should have gone in an entirely different direction with
2:06
Speaker 1: what came from the initial investigation, But they took the
2:10
Speaker 1: really long, borderline crazy way around the right answer to
2:14
Speaker 1: get to this one. It's so convoluted, and luckily with
2:18
Speaker 1: us today to help tell the story, we have a
2:21
Speaker 1: true hero of the innocence movement, and of course I'm
2:23
Speaker 1: talking about Ken Klonsky. Ken is the director of Innocence International,
2:28
Speaker 1: an organization that he co founded with a legend, a
2:31
Speaker 1: boxing legend, and a civil rights legend, a man whose
2:35
Speaker 1: name you'll probably recognize, Reuben Hurricane Carter so Ken. Welcome
2:40
Speaker 1: to Wrongful Conviction.
2:42
Speaker 2: Thank you, Jason. It's great to be here today.
2:45
Speaker 1: We are compelled to shine a light on the horrendous
2:49
Speaker 1: case of A t fre Fe and Sebastian Burns, two
2:53
Speaker 1: nineteen year old boys back then twenty seven years ago,
2:56
Speaker 1: over nineteen, who were egregiously framed, persecuted in the court
3:02
Speaker 1: system and in the press. A Tief is with us today.
3:04
Speaker 1: Sebastian can't be unfortunately, but the case I want to
3:07
Speaker 1: be clear, they're both equally innocent and they're both framed
3:11
Speaker 1: in the exact same proceedings.
3:13
Speaker 2: You have a prepaid call.
3:14
Speaker 1: You will not be charged for this call.
3:16
Speaker 3: This call is from an inmate aunt Monroe Correctional Complex.
3:22
Speaker 3: This call will be recorded and monitored.
3:25
Speaker 1: So on the phone with us now, calling in from
3:28
Speaker 1: prison in Washington State where he's been locked up for
3:31
Speaker 1: a triple murder he had nothing to do with. Is
3:34
Speaker 1: my friend and personal hero, A t f Fe. A Tief,
3:37
Speaker 1: I'm sorry you have to be here under these conditions,
3:41
Speaker 1: but hopefully not for too much longer. But I am
3:43
Speaker 1: happy you're here and thanks for calling in.
3:45
Speaker 3: Thank you, Jason. I'm so grateful, So Tief.
3:49
Speaker 1: Your story was covered by Kelly Laudenberg in the Confession
3:52
Speaker 1: Tapes on Netflix, and in a series that was one
3:55
Speaker 1: episode per case yours, she actually dedicated two episodes to it.
3:59
Speaker 1: So we've got had a lot of ground to cover.
4:01
Speaker 1: So let's start by going back to a time before
4:05
Speaker 1: this unspeakable tragedy befell your family. What was life like
4:09
Speaker 1: for you growing up?
4:11
Speaker 3: It was a remarkably happy and lucky life, I would think,
4:15
Speaker 3: in almost every respect. I grew up partly in the Karachi, Pakistan.
4:20
Speaker 3: The most of my life I had lived in Vancouver,
4:22
Speaker 3: and I had amazing, devoted, wonderful parents. I mean, my
4:27
Speaker 3: parents were extraordinary people, and I didn't really just love them,
4:31
Speaker 3: I admired them. My mom was a best friend to me.
4:35
Speaker 3: My dad was the kind of person who cared deeply
4:37
Speaker 3: about everything in the world and was able to continuously
4:41
Speaker 3: engage me in being interested in the world in a
4:44
Speaker 3: way that I think two people ever get to experience.
4:47
Speaker 3: It was a real enormous privilege to grow up like
4:49
Speaker 3: that and to be able to have the parents I did.
4:53
Speaker 1: So no one ever even claimed that there were any
4:55
Speaker 1: problems of any kind in your family, that there were
4:58
Speaker 1: any bad feelings, much less violence or strife. And I
5:01
Speaker 1: also want to highlight that your father, doctor Tarique Refey,
5:05
Speaker 1: was a prominent Sunni Muslim and was active in his
5:07
Speaker 1: religious and cultural communities, both in Vancouver and Bellevue, only
5:11
Speaker 1: a two and a half hour drive away from one another.
5:13
Speaker 1: By the way, he was the co founder and one
5:16
Speaker 1: time president of the very moderate interfaith friendship building organization,
5:21
Speaker 1: the Pakistan Canada Association, whose activities were frankly very upsetting
5:28
Speaker 1: to some more radical Muslims.
5:30
Speaker 2: And it's important to note that doctor Ifei also published
5:33
Speaker 2: a paper and developed a controversial computer program indicating that
5:38
Speaker 2: Muslims in British Columbia were mistakenly not facing Mecca when
5:43
Speaker 2: they prayed. The direction Muslims are meant to face is
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Speaker 2: called Kiblah, which is the direction of the shortest possible
5:49
Speaker 2: path from any place to Mecca, and it has all
5:52
Speaker 2: sorts of important implications, not only daily prayers, but also
5:56
Speaker 2: Muslims are not permitted to urinate, spit or stretch their
6:00
Speaker 2: feet in the direction of Mecca, and when dead Muslims
6:03
Speaker 2: must be buried on their right hand side to face Mecca. Now,
6:07
Speaker 2: much later, during a chief's trial, this controversy came up,
6:11
Speaker 2: and the prosecution misquoted doctor Refae's paper stating that according
6:16
Speaker 2: to doctor A. Fay, the kibla in use in the
6:18
Speaker 2: Pacific Northwest was only off by one degree, and how
6:22
Speaker 2: would anyone be angered by such a small degree. But
6:25
Speaker 2: the prosecutor had misquoted doctor Rafae, who said that the
6:28
Speaker 2: true kibla direction was one degree off from the north pole,
6:33
Speaker 2: which would mean that Muslims praying in the Pacific Northwest
6:37
Speaker 2: were off by close to one hundred degrees. So imagine
6:41
Speaker 2: a ninety degree turn and then ten more degrees, and
6:44
Speaker 2: then imagine telling folks that their dead parents were facing
6:48
Speaker 2: the wrong direction forever.
6:50
Speaker 1: So atif the night when your parents and sister were
6:53
Speaker 1: tragically killed was July twelfth, nineteen ninety four, but you
6:58
Speaker 1: and your friend Sebastian Burns were setting out for the
7:00
Speaker 1: night while your mother, father, and sister stayed home, if
7:03
Speaker 1: you could give us the timeline for that night, Where
7:06
Speaker 1: did you go and what did you do?
7:08
Speaker 3: Sure so it was in any ways a typical night
7:11
Speaker 3: for us as teenagers, going out to a diner, then
7:14
Speaker 3: going to the movies, and then afterwards searching for a
7:17
Speaker 3: club and going for a dessert. We had an early
7:21
Speaker 3: light dinner at the Keg restaurant from around nine a
7:25
Speaker 3: clocks to about nine thirty ish, and at that time
7:29
Speaker 3: we went over for the nine to fifty showings of
7:32
Speaker 3: The Lion King, and so we were in the lobby
7:35
Speaker 3: for a while until the movie started at nine p fifty.
7:37
Speaker 3: They would play a large number of advertisements and trailers
7:41
Speaker 3: before the movie actually started. Those take several minutes, and
7:44
Speaker 3: then what happened that night was something quite unusual. The
7:47
Speaker 3: curtains closed after the advertisements and trailers were over, and
7:51
Speaker 3: the line King began and started to be projected over
7:55
Speaker 3: the closed curtains, and the movie went on like that
7:58
Speaker 3: for quite a while, enough so that Sebastian and I
8:01
Speaker 3: think some other patrons were in the audience got up
8:03
Speaker 3: and went and had to go get the manager. It
8:05
Speaker 3: took a while for them to get the movie restarted
8:08
Speaker 3: and the curtains opened again, and so you know, it
8:11
Speaker 3: was probably ten eight or something by the.
8:13
Speaker 1: Time all that was salved and that manager's name is
8:17
Speaker 1: Jose Martinez, who spoke with Sebastian and handled this projector
8:21
Speaker 1: and curtain issue. He could place you both in the
8:25
Speaker 1: theater at that time, as could the concessions employee Jesse Kaplan,
8:29
Speaker 1: who's the guy who sold Sebastian his KitKat and talked
8:32
Speaker 1: with him about his T shirt before the movie. Now
8:35
Speaker 1: both men Jose Martinez and Jesse Kaplan distinctly recalling you
8:39
Speaker 1: guys both in the lobby of the theater before the
8:42
Speaker 1: movie began and during this projector issue as well, because,
8:46
Speaker 1: according to them, a Pakistani kidd and a white guy
8:49
Speaker 1: with blonde hair made a notable pair.
8:52
Speaker 2: So that covers a Chiefs and Sebastian's whereabouts from their
8:55
Speaker 2: arrival to the movie theater around nine forty pm to
8:59
Speaker 2: at least ten oh eight pm when the projector is
9:02
Speaker 2: shoe was fixed. Meanwhile, a thief's neighbors, Mark Sidell and
9:06
Speaker 2: Julie Rackley, who lived on either side of the Rafae household,
9:10
Speaker 2: whose houses were so close in fact, that they had
9:13
Speaker 2: complained sometime of the volume of the Rafae's TV. They
9:17
Speaker 2: independently reported and later went on to testify that they
9:21
Speaker 2: heard the exact same sounds, describing them as a hammering
9:25
Speaker 2: or banging sound, but hollow and muffled sounding, and they
9:29
Speaker 2: heard those sounds comfortably in the window of time. When
9:32
Speaker 2: Jose Martinez and Jesse Kaplan can place a tief in
9:35
Speaker 2: Sebastian in the lobby of the movie theater, you.
9:39
Speaker 1: Just can't be in two places at once. It's making
9:43
Speaker 1: me crazy because you had just about as good of
9:46
Speaker 1: an alibi as you could possibly have. So now you've
9:49
Speaker 1: just seen the Lion King right, and you hit a
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Speaker 1: few other places. Just a typical night that millions of
9:54
Speaker 1: teenagers have every weekend all over the country. Then you
9:58
Speaker 1: go home and find yourself in a literal horror scene.
10:03
Speaker 3: So we got out of the car, not expecting anything unusual,
10:07
Speaker 3: walked into the living room, and I saw my mother
10:11
Speaker 3: lying in that room, and I could see stain on
10:15
Speaker 3: the carpet, and after that, I was in a daze.
10:20
Speaker 3: I rushed upstairs. The fashion was rushing everywhere around too,
10:24
Speaker 3: and it's a confusion of disbelief and bewilderment. I went
10:29
Speaker 3: over to my dad's room. Even though the lights were off,
10:33
Speaker 3: I could see what the Offsters would later describe as
10:37
Speaker 3: it looked like a shotgun blast over the back wall
10:40
Speaker 3: and it was. I was spinning around literally on my seat.
10:45
Speaker 3: I don't think I've ever really recovered from it. I
11:01
Speaker 3: felt frightened. I felt completely disoriented and in shock. Sash
11:06
Speaker 3: and I had just instinctively, I think, ran and ran outside,
11:10
Speaker 3: and he had already called the police. I could hear
11:12
Speaker 3: him calling, and as soon as the first police officer arrived,
11:15
Speaker 3: Gary Rimando, he actually drove past us while we were
11:18
Speaker 3: in the driveway, and we ran after them, trying to
11:21
Speaker 3: flag him down, and he had to actually pound on
11:23
Speaker 3: the trunk of the car because he was just driving off.
11:26
Speaker 3: And he got out and yelled at us to sit
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Speaker 3: on the curb. I don't know whether he thought we
11:30
Speaker 3: were perpetrators or something, or somehow involved, but Jerry Rauda
11:35
Speaker 3: was very serious about us sitting down and being quiet,
11:38
Speaker 3: and I didn't know what to do other than to
11:40
Speaker 3: follow his directions. I think that changed the way everyone
11:44
Speaker 3: else looked at us and our behavior afterwards. I think
11:48
Speaker 3: the other detectives who came in with they were not
11:51
Speaker 3: as emotional as we would expect, They were not as
11:54
Speaker 3: concerned as we would expect. We gave them every cooperation
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Speaker 3: we could. We gave them all our clothes, their shoes,
12:02
Speaker 3: my glasses, fingerprints and photographs. They did searches with lights,
12:07
Speaker 3: and they did a gunshot residue chat. You know, give
12:10
Speaker 3: them cartilage to search the house and do whatever else
12:14
Speaker 3: they wanted to do. They recorded statements, and then they
12:18
Speaker 3: bought us some sweats and jumped us off in the
12:21
Speaker 3: w mortelle without a phone.
12:23
Speaker 2: My assumption was always that they didn't want them to
12:26
Speaker 2: call a lawyer or mister Burns to get advice on
12:30
Speaker 2: what to do, but to keep them isolated.
12:33
Speaker 1: Okay, so they've got you confined in the CD motel room,
12:37
Speaker 1: poking and prodding you and Sebastian with a whirlwind of
12:40
Speaker 1: questions and examinations that you submitted to voluntarily, which lasted
12:45
Speaker 1: about fifty six hours and turned up exactly nothing.
12:51
Speaker 2: Neither did the physical evidence that the crime scene incriminate
12:55
Speaker 2: a Teeth or Sebastian, nor did the extensive testing that
12:59
Speaker 2: a Teeth and Sebastian voluntarily submitted to afterward. There was
13:03
Speaker 2: not a shred of bone, blood, tissue, or anything else
13:07
Speaker 2: found in either boy's body or clothing, or in their hair.
13:11
Speaker 2: The idea that you could just shower away all of
13:14
Speaker 2: that blood evidence. It's pretty remote.
13:16
Speaker 1: So they're pinning their hopes on the DNA test results
13:20
Speaker 1: to incriminate you too, because they had nothing else. But
13:23
Speaker 1: in the meantime, you're two teenage boys. I mean, let's
13:26
Speaker 1: face it, the responsible adults in your lives here in America.
13:30
Speaker 1: Your parents were simply gone, right, your sister was gone,
13:35
Speaker 1: and your house was a crime scene. You had no
13:38
Speaker 1: home here at all, right, nowhere to go, and I mean,
13:41
Speaker 1: now put yourself in Sebastian's parents' shoes, right, they were
13:47
Speaker 1: definitely going to try like hell to get you and
13:50
Speaker 1: their son back to their home in Canada. And all
13:54
Speaker 1: of this was happening while funeral arrangements were being made
13:58
Speaker 1: by your extended family. So at the.
14:01
Speaker 3: Time I didn't realize this, but my relatives were actually
14:04
Speaker 3: flying in and coming into town, and they kept the
14:08
Speaker 3: fact that that was happening from us. So that Ashian's
14:10
Speaker 3: parents had contacted the Canadian consulates, and the consulates contacted
14:15
Speaker 3: the police and informed themths if they wanted to return
14:18
Speaker 3: us to Canada. And I left a message with the
14:21
Speaker 3: Keechi Thompson saying that we would be leaving, and on
14:24
Speaker 3: that very day, my relatives were in Seattle, but the
14:28
Speaker 3: police were not disclosing to them where we were for
14:31
Speaker 3: how to reach us, and they weren't telling us that
14:34
Speaker 3: they were even in town. And so on the day
14:36
Speaker 3: that I went back to Canada, I didn't even know
14:40
Speaker 3: what the police did know, which was that the funeral
14:42
Speaker 3: was already being arranged completely without my knowledge or participation.
14:47
Speaker 3: And this would later be something that the police would
14:49
Speaker 3: then lie about and describe us as fleeing the country.
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Speaker 2: They were saying, as I think a couple of wise
14:56
Speaker 2: guys who'd gotten away with something.
14:59
Speaker 1: So now they want to paint you as fleeing, right,
15:03
Speaker 1: even though you had given them everything they'd ask for
15:06
Speaker 1: over the course of those fifty six hours in that
15:08
Speaker 1: CD motel room. Now, one of the other bizarre things
15:13
Speaker 1: about the prosecution's theory in this case was that a
15:16
Speaker 1: thief had wanted the insurance money from his parents. But
15:19
Speaker 1: even that you would need to suspend a huge amount
15:21
Speaker 1: of disbelief because of the level of violence in these murders,
15:24
Speaker 1: and particularly of a chief's father, who the police estimated
15:28
Speaker 1: was bashed in the head forty times with a baseball
15:31
Speaker 1: pat and indications were and are that the first blow
15:36
Speaker 1: was the blow that ended doctor Affee's life. So why
15:40
Speaker 1: would a loving son who now supposedly suddenly out for
15:45
Speaker 1: money commit a murder in that manner?
15:48
Speaker 2: The amount of violence done could only have indicated fanaticism
15:53
Speaker 2: to me.
15:54
Speaker 1: So now, while there was still waiting on the DNA
15:58
Speaker 1: to incriminate you, or so they thought, more evidence was
16:02
Speaker 1: pouring in pointing instead toward religious extremists. You'll remember doctor
16:08
Speaker 1: Refee's efforts to improve relations with other religious communities and
16:12
Speaker 1: his controversial views on Kibla okay. So in the days
16:16
Speaker 1: following the murders, the Bellevue Police received not one, not two,
16:21
Speaker 1: but three tips from other law enforcement agencies. First Constable
16:26
Speaker 1: Jelinis with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police told them that
16:29
Speaker 1: a confidential informant had warned them of a man who
16:31
Speaker 1: had been offered twenty thousand dollars to kill an East
16:34
Speaker 1: Indian family that had previously lived in Vancouver but had
16:37
Speaker 1: moved to Bellevue. The informant became aware of this two
16:41
Speaker 1: days before the murders were committed. Jelina's contacted investigators Robert
16:46
Speaker 1: Thompson and Jeff Gomes the lead Bellevue officers on the case,
16:50
Speaker 1: who then traveled to Vancouver and knocked on the door
16:53
Speaker 1: of the man in questions home twice. He didn't answer
16:56
Speaker 1: either time, and the officers returned to the US without
16:59
Speaker 1: making any contact. Secondly, the Intelligence division of the Seattle
17:03
Speaker 1: Police had information that Al Fukra, a radical and milletant organization,
17:08
Speaker 1: may have been involved in the homicides, but they didn't
17:10
Speaker 1: bother to follow up on that tip either, and five
17:14
Speaker 1: days after the murders, another tip came in from the FBI.
17:18
Speaker 1: Right so our CMP Royalty Mounted Police, Seattle Police Intelligence,
17:22
Speaker 1: and now the freaking FBI. They delivered an informant to
17:26
Speaker 1: Bellevue and he told them that a Milletant Islamic faction
17:30
Speaker 1: to which he was privy, said that doctor Tarique Reffey
17:34
Speaker 1: should die because of his beliefs and teachings about the Qur'an.
17:39
Speaker 1: The informant also said that in the days after the murders,
17:42
Speaker 1: a member of this same Milletant faction came to his
17:45
Speaker 1: house and was worried that he the informant had seen
17:49
Speaker 1: a baseball bat that the Milletan and others had had
17:52
Speaker 1: in their car. Because of this concern. The FBI informant
17:56
Speaker 1: came to believe that the murder weapon was a bat. Now,
18:00
Speaker 1: the Bellevue police already knew the murder weapon was a
18:03
Speaker 1: bad but that fact critically had not been made public yet.
18:08
Speaker 3: This guy was a reliable FBI informant. The police were
18:11
Speaker 3: given full addresses, names, places of work, telephone numbers, and
18:16
Speaker 3: they just ignored him. They didn't even spell the names
18:20
Speaker 3: that he gave them correctly. All of this information never
18:23
Speaker 3: came to our attention till years later because they said
18:27
Speaker 3: that they didn't have to turn over discovery until we
18:29
Speaker 3: were in the United States, and so for years we
18:31
Speaker 3: didn't know about any of this information and we couldn't
18:34
Speaker 3: investigate it.
18:35
Speaker 1: So if all of these credible and compelling leads couldn't
18:40
Speaker 1: break through the Bellevue investigator's tunnel vision, I'm going to
18:44
Speaker 1: go ahead and guess that conflicting DNA test results probably
18:48
Speaker 1: wouldn't have made a difference either. So let's dive in.
18:51
Speaker 1: Investigators found DNA mixed with doctor Faye's blood in the
18:54
Speaker 1: downstairs shower, DNA mixed in with a bloody footprint in
18:58
Speaker 1: the garage made with doctor off Fay's blok blood, as
19:00
Speaker 1: well as a coarse body hair or pubic hair on
19:03
Speaker 1: the parents fitted sheet where Doctorfae's body was found. But
19:08
Speaker 1: none of the other DNA profiles that were discovered at
19:11
Speaker 1: the crime scene matched the DNA of the victims to
19:15
Speaker 1: Reek Sultana or Basma Rafae or the supposed alleged culprits
19:21
Speaker 1: in the case, Sebastian and a Tief. So there's DNA
19:25
Speaker 1: evidence at the crime scene clearly excluding a Tief and
19:28
Speaker 1: Sebastian and pointing at unknown perpetrators.
19:33
Speaker 3: One more thing about god Hare that you mentioned the
19:36
Speaker 3: texts initially when they found it, that it was in
19:38
Speaker 3: a position that could only be explained if it had
19:41
Speaker 3: been left by the killer. And they kept saying that
19:43
Speaker 3: right until the DNA proofs that hadn't belong to Sebastian.
19:46
Speaker 1: Ormy more inconvenient truths. So if they had no evidence
19:51
Speaker 1: of your guilt, which they didn't, in fact, they had
19:54
Speaker 1: evidence of someone else's guilt, but they were fixed on
19:57
Speaker 1: getting new in and I've go ahead and make shit up. Right.
20:02
Speaker 1: They pointed to books you had read and philosophy papers,
20:06
Speaker 1: saying that you two guys loved Nietzsche and subscribe to
20:08
Speaker 1: his superman theory, and in their slanted understanding, implied that
20:14
Speaker 1: you and Sebastian were capable of callously taking what you
20:18
Speaker 1: wanted from those who you deemed weaker than yourselves. Then
20:23
Speaker 1: they went after your alibi, saying the Sebastian ordered wine
20:26
Speaker 1: at the restaurant you had gone through that night, the
20:28
Speaker 1: keg so specifically so that he would be carded right
20:32
Speaker 1: in order to solidify his alibi. But what's wrong with
20:36
Speaker 1: this theory?
20:37
Speaker 3: Well, we had Jake id So, like most of under
20:40
Speaker 3: age kids at that time, to get into clubs and
20:42
Speaker 3: dig order drinks. But you know it had a different
20:44
Speaker 3: name on it, Edward Montero Eduardo Mantero. So I'm not
20:47
Speaker 3: sure how that would help us exactly.
20:49
Speaker 1: Right, for that theory about being remembered to hold water,
20:52
Speaker 1: you'd have to have id that wasn't fake, not idea
20:56
Speaker 1: that was. And then they attacked your alibi again, saying
20:58
Speaker 1: that you left the larger than usual tip just to
21:01
Speaker 1: be remembered. Okay, fifteen dollars on a bill of nine
21:04
Speaker 1: to fifty And if you think that's too much, and
21:07
Speaker 1: of course it is more than twenty percent, but try
21:09
Speaker 1: asking your server or bartender what they usually do when
21:12
Speaker 1: they go out. They're usually very generous to one another.
21:15
Speaker 1: And Sebastian used to be a server.
21:17
Speaker 3: Sebastian like to leave that he had been a server.
21:20
Speaker 3: He knew how much that meant to them. You can
21:23
Speaker 3: tell it server to keep the change. You're not going
21:25
Speaker 3: to just give them a fifty cent tip because you
21:27
Speaker 3: have ten even in your bills of nine fifty. You're
21:30
Speaker 3: going to give them the next billion house.
21:32
Speaker 1: Which I guess in this case was a five. But
21:34
Speaker 1: obviously this is all really weak and with the physical
21:37
Speaker 1: evidence all pointing away from you, plus all the media
21:41
Speaker 1: hype around your case, they had to come up with something.
21:44
Speaker 1: So it's January nineteen ninety five, months after the murders,
21:48
Speaker 1: you're both in Canada and Bellevue Investigators' list the help
21:51
Speaker 1: of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police to perform a sting
21:55
Speaker 1: operation that was illegal in the US but legal in Canada,
22:00
Speaker 1: known as Mister Big.
22:02
Speaker 2: The Myster Big technique involves undercover officers playing roles as gangsters,
22:07
Speaker 2: thus gaining the trust of a police target. They seduce
22:11
Speaker 2: the target with a gangster mystique and the promise of
22:14
Speaker 2: big money schemes. They eventually ask about the target's criminal
22:18
Speaker 2: history under the guise of knowing whether any past criminal
22:22
Speaker 2: behavior poses a risk to future criminal operations that they're
22:26
Speaker 2: going to perform together. For example, you know, will you
22:28
Speaker 2: turn on me if you get pinched? And then, as
22:31
Speaker 2: with other methods of eliciting confessions and Jason, your network
22:34
Speaker 2: has covered this extensively on your show, wrongful conviction, false Confessions.
22:39
Speaker 2: The results are a mixed bag, some reliable confessions, some false,
22:44
Speaker 2: and the most reliable way one can tell the difference
22:47
Speaker 2: is by the evidence that does or does not corroborate
22:51
Speaker 2: the statements made by police targets.
22:53
Speaker 1: Now, in this case, the operation begins with setting up
22:56
Speaker 1: electronic and visual surveillance of the targets, which include the
23:00
Speaker 1: tief Sebastian and their friend Jimmy Miyoshi.
23:03
Speaker 2: And it's important to note that the authorities knew Jimmy
23:06
Speaker 2: wasn't even in any area at the time of the murders,
23:09
Speaker 2: but they were leaning on him as an alleged accomplish.
23:12
Speaker 2: Either before or after the killing. They would take either.
23:16
Speaker 1: So the game begins and over time there's a chance meeting,
23:21
Speaker 1: though well it's not really a chance meeting between Sebastian
23:24
Speaker 1: and these undercover agents, and a slow seduction process begins
23:28
Speaker 1: into making him believe in their assumed criminal identities. They
23:32
Speaker 1: let Sebashian in on some stage meetings and some fake
23:35
Speaker 1: victimless scenarios like moving a car he had been told
23:38
Speaker 1: was stolen, and then with a mix, a toxic mix
23:41
Speaker 1: of trust and fear, they hoped to elicit a confession.
23:44
Speaker 1: So this seduction process went on for about four months,
23:47
Speaker 1: and there's been talk about the murder in Bellevue, but
23:50
Speaker 1: Sebastian repeatedly denied it. Then around May through July, things
23:54
Speaker 1: start to come to a head.
23:55
Speaker 3: I had nothing he would be under carfer officers. First
23:58
Speaker 3: I knew Sash was getting involved in them. He was
24:01
Speaker 3: telling me about it, But by May sixth Sebashian didn't
24:03
Speaker 3: want to have anything to do with him. Every time
24:05
Speaker 3: Sebastian tried to say I don't want to have anything
24:08
Speaker 3: to do with you, he would say, who's you going
24:10
Speaker 3: to give up when the police come and arrest you?
24:12
Speaker 3: And I know from my inside information that the police
24:15
Speaker 3: are come to arrest you, And Sebashian would say, well,
24:18
Speaker 3: they must be fabricating something, they must be misrepresenting something.
24:21
Speaker 3: It can't be the case because we didn't do the crime.
24:24
Speaker 2: Now, if you're speaking to a police officer, you have
24:28
Speaker 2: the right not to incriminate yourself. You can plead the
24:30
Speaker 2: Fifth Amendment. But if you're speaking to gangsters, it's far
24:34
Speaker 2: more intimidating because you can't plead the Fifth Amendment. With
24:37
Speaker 2: these gangsters. You're afraid of what they're going to do
24:40
Speaker 2: to you or your family.
24:41
Speaker 3: And it didn't matter whether we thought or we were
24:44
Speaker 3: worried that we were about to be arrested, because what
24:47
Speaker 3: mattered was what mister Big believed. And he kept saying
24:51
Speaker 3: that what she believed is that we were being arrested,
24:53
Speaker 3: and that our being arrested was putting him in danger.
24:56
Speaker 3: And he says, I'm not going to take the risk
24:58
Speaker 3: of going down. You have to rem remember that you
25:01
Speaker 3: have to satisfy me that I can get rid of
25:03
Speaker 3: all the evidence sits down there so that you don't
25:05
Speaker 3: go to jail. So you're not putting my organization at rip.
25:08
Speaker 1: It's a corner that they paint you into from which
25:10
Speaker 1: there is no escape unless you do what they say.
25:13
Speaker 2: And to be clear, a thief in Sebastian never really
25:16
Speaker 2: came out and said, we killed them, and this is
25:19
Speaker 2: how we did it. What passed as a confession came
25:22
Speaker 2: from the bogus answers to the undercover agent's questions, questions
25:26
Speaker 2: that were aimed at filling in the large gaps in
25:29
Speaker 2: this investigation that had so far pointed away from a
25:32
Speaker 2: tief in Sebastian, for example, about how they had covered
25:35
Speaker 2: their tracks, and these bogus answers that a tief in
25:39
Speaker 2: Sebastian ended up giving to these questions are what ended
25:43
Speaker 2: up passing for an admission of guilt.
25:45
Speaker 1: For example, when Sebastian was asked about what you guys
25:47
Speaker 1: did with the bloody clothing, he said, we threw them
25:50
Speaker 1: in a dumpster, which one I can't remember. Well what
25:54
Speaker 1: happens when they find it panicked? He came up with, uh, no,
25:58
Speaker 1: we threw each piece of clothing out in different dumpsters.
26:02
Speaker 1: You know, so two socks, two shoes, pants, underwear, shirt,
26:07
Speaker 1: that's seven pieces of clothing each. How many dumpsters could
26:11
Speaker 1: you even find in Bellevue, right? You need to have
26:14
Speaker 1: a Google map of dumpsters, which didn't exist back then.
26:17
Speaker 1: These are just childish lies. The next time, the undercover
26:21
Speaker 1: agent asked him about the bloody clothing. He changed his
26:24
Speaker 1: story again. No, no, no, we did it naked, so
26:27
Speaker 1: there were no bloody clothes. But then there were also
26:30
Speaker 1: no bloody footprints leading to the shower or blood that
26:34
Speaker 1: had dripped off of their supposedly naked bodies. It's a miracle.
26:38
Speaker 1: Then later on, when they ask you, a Tief, the
26:40
Speaker 1: same question about the disposal of any bloody clothing, you said, oh,
26:44
Speaker 1: we just hucked them out the window. So now that's
26:48
Speaker 1: four different fucking stories just about the clothing. Then there's
26:53
Speaker 1: the utter nonsense with the murder weapon, the baseball bat.
26:57
Speaker 1: Right where'd you get it? Well, first, s Abashian said,
27:00
Speaker 1: it was just laying around the refe household. I mean,
27:04
Speaker 1: I'm not sure if you can speak for all pakistanisatief.
27:08
Speaker 1: But isn't cricket more of the usual thing.
27:11
Speaker 3: We played cricket and pakoshon. I've never played baseball in
27:14
Speaker 3: any form whatsoever.
27:16
Speaker 1: The next time, Sebastian comes up with a completely different lie,
27:20
Speaker 1: which is that you guys bought the bat the murder
27:23
Speaker 1: weapon in a sporting goods store, but which store you
27:25
Speaker 1: couldn't remember where, doesn't know.
27:27
Speaker 2: The undercover agents also asked Sebastian about how they were
27:31
Speaker 2: able to commit these murders if they were at the
27:34
Speaker 2: movie theater, and he said, oh, we left by the
27:37
Speaker 2: side door. And no one ever bothered to demonstrate how
27:40
Speaker 2: impossible it would be to commit the murders during the
27:42
Speaker 2: time frame supplied by the neighbors. So again, another implausible
27:47
Speaker 2: answer is given to please these gangsters.
27:50
Speaker 1: So there's only one reason why these stories contradicted the
27:54
Speaker 1: facts and each other, and that's because they were all
27:57
Speaker 1: made up stories. You would have literally needed to rehearse
27:59
Speaker 1: this because there's no way that the two different minds
28:02
Speaker 1: are going to come up with the same story independently
28:05
Speaker 1: when the whole story is made up out of whole cloth, right.
28:08
Speaker 3: I mean, we tried her best to provide a plausible story,
28:11
Speaker 3: but yes, we didn't come up with perfect stories because
28:13
Speaker 3: we didn't commit the murder. Then we couldn't keep our
28:15
Speaker 3: stories straight because we didn't practice them well enough.
28:18
Speaker 1: Okay, So eventually you're arrested July thirty first, nineteen ninety five.
28:22
Speaker 1: You and Sebastador charged with three counts of aggravated first
28:25
Speaker 1: degree murder, and your friend Jimmy Miyoshi was charged with
28:29
Speaker 1: conspiracy to commit murder, and you guys were locked up
28:32
Speaker 1: in maximum security pre trial facilities in BC, British Columbia
28:37
Speaker 1: for six years, and in the fall of ninety five,
28:41
Speaker 1: Jimmy Miyoshi was threatened by the RCMP with a suggestion
28:45
Speaker 1: that he might face the death penalty if he didn't
28:48
Speaker 1: tell them what they wanted to hear, which is that
28:50
Speaker 1: you guys were guilty. So understandably, scared for his life,
28:53
Speaker 1: Jimmy signed an immunity agreement from his charge of conspiracy
28:56
Speaker 1: to commit murder and provided a number of statements incriminated
29:00
Speaker 1: you guys. But again we see the same pattern. Each
29:03
Speaker 1: statement contradicted the last one, and each one of them
29:05
Speaker 1: contradicted the physical evidence at the crime scene. So how
29:08
Speaker 1: many times did Jimmy initially deny that you and Sebastian
29:12
Speaker 1: had anything to do with it?
29:14
Speaker 3: Jimmy denied it twenty four times, and even after he
29:17
Speaker 3: made statements that were necessary to get an immunity agreement,
29:20
Speaker 3: he contacted our attorneys and he tried to find a
29:23
Speaker 3: way to tell the truth without being punished for it.
29:25
Speaker 3: Proscutors got out he was working for Lehman Brothers and
29:28
Speaker 3: put pressure on Lehman brothers, he was totally was going
29:30
Speaker 3: to be fired unless he fulfilled his obligations to the prosecutors,
29:34
Speaker 3: and then he was totally might face murder charges in additions.
29:37
Speaker 3: So Jimmy did what everyone does, I think, in a
29:40
Speaker 3: system that's designed to make people say what the prosecutors
29:43
Speaker 3: want you to say, Jimmy did, in fact go through
29:46
Speaker 3: with fulfilling his agreements, and then Leman fired him anyway.
29:50
Speaker 1: So, after six years in a Canadian maximum security facility,
29:54
Speaker 1: in March of two thousand and one, you were finally
29:57
Speaker 1: extradited to the United States, and in the lead up
29:59
Speaker 1: to trial in January of two thousand and three, something
30:03
Speaker 1: both horrifying and what should have been like the final
30:07
Speaker 1: alarm sounding your innocence occurred. If you're a member Atif's father,
30:13
Speaker 1: doctor Refai, co founded and led a Muslim group in
30:16
Speaker 1: Vancouver that sought to build bridges with other faith communities. Well,
30:21
Speaker 1: his co founder and successor in leading that group, Riasad
30:25
Speaker 1: Ali Khan, was murdered.
30:28
Speaker 2: He was murdered on his doorstep very close to the
30:31
Speaker 2: eve of the trial. Maybe it was a message, the
30:35
Speaker 2: killing of Riyasa d Ali Khan that a we still
30:39
Speaker 2: are here, and we're going to do what we can
30:41
Speaker 2: to keep these religions apart and be you have the
30:45
Speaker 2: wrong people, You're prosecuting the wrong people.
31:02
Speaker 1: Finally, the trial began November twenty third, two thousand and three,
31:05
Speaker 1: over eight years after the original arress. But the trial
31:10
Speaker 1: in some ways was as messed up as the rest
31:12
Speaker 1: of this nightmare scenario. I mean when I say that
31:16
Speaker 1: the trial Judge Charles Murtell ruled key evidence and admissible,
31:21
Speaker 1: so the jury never learned about the leads that were
31:24
Speaker 1: provided to the bellev Police by the FBI or the
31:26
Speaker 1: Seattle Intelligence Division informants. And those leads, for obvious reasons,
31:31
Speaker 1: would have been essential to prove your innocence as well
31:35
Speaker 1: as introduced the element of religious extremism that would have
31:39
Speaker 1: again been absolutely compelling to any jury. But they weren't
31:43
Speaker 1: permitted to hear that. And they also weren't permitted to
31:45
Speaker 1: hear from doctor Richard Leo. He's a leading expert on
31:48
Speaker 1: false confessions. He had agreed to present information regarding the
31:52
Speaker 1: false confessions that took place in order to provide the
31:55
Speaker 1: jury with relevant and reliable social scientific information about the
31:59
Speaker 1: psychologe logical phenomenon of interrogation and false confession so the
32:03
Speaker 1: jury could make an informed decision. The judge somehow determined
32:09
Speaker 1: that it was quote the province of this jury to
32:12
Speaker 1: decide whether or not, in their common experience and common sense,
32:16
Speaker 1: these statements made by these defendants of these undercover officers
32:20
Speaker 1: are voluntary or involuntary. You were doomed at that point.
32:23
Speaker 1: You were doomed.
32:24
Speaker 3: All the trial council, including my own and in the judge,
32:28
Speaker 3: were convinced that everything could be admitted from Canada on
32:31
Speaker 3: a silver platter without any American constitual scrutiny. You were
32:35
Speaker 3: wrong about that, but that wasn't discovered till years after
32:38
Speaker 3: the trial.
32:39
Speaker 1: Wow. So this technique that was illegal in the States
32:41
Speaker 1: but legal at the time in Canada was just sort
32:43
Speaker 1: of greenlit right in. And that is, of course the
32:47
Speaker 1: only evidence in this case against you. I say that because,
32:51
Speaker 1: as I mentioned, the prosecution did present the ridiculous brain
32:56
Speaker 1: fart about the fake ideas, the large tip, and the
32:58
Speaker 1: nietzscha nonsense to try to bolster the false confessions, which
33:02
Speaker 1: they knew ran directly counter to the physical evidence, DNA evidence,
33:07
Speaker 1: alibi witnesses, and eyewitness accounts of the neighbors, as well
33:10
Speaker 1: as the leads that they didn't bother to follow up
33:13
Speaker 1: on involving religious extremists who were in all likelihood the
33:18
Speaker 1: real killers in this case. But it's really hard to
33:22
Speaker 1: overcome confession evidence, no matter how many inconsistencies and contradictions
33:27
Speaker 1: there are. So now, at this point, it's nearly ten
33:32
Speaker 1: freaking years after your family was murdered, and the jury
33:36
Speaker 1: came to what was probably a predictable conclusion, a guilty verdict,
33:42
Speaker 1: and you and Sebasha were sentenced to serve three consecutive
33:46
Speaker 1: life terms without the possibility of parole. Tell us about
33:50
Speaker 1: that moment.
33:51
Speaker 3: I don't think anything's as bad as the moment that
33:53
Speaker 3: I came home that night, but but that was certainly
33:56
Speaker 3: a close seconds. Even after everything that happened in this
34:00
Speaker 3: I didn't expect it. I believe somehow the jury would
34:04
Speaker 3: still be able to see that we were INNO since
34:06
Speaker 3: I was shocked.
34:07
Speaker 1: Okay, so you've already been in jail for a decade.
34:11
Speaker 1: Now you're sent to prison, but you've continued, you know,
34:13
Speaker 1: your dedication to constantly learning and improving and growing.
34:18
Speaker 3: I was very fortunate to find myself amongst some prisoners
34:21
Speaker 3: who were really interested in education, and a great volunteer
34:24
Speaker 3: named Carole Estus who wanted to found a University Beyond
34:28
Speaker 3: bars program here, and so I was able to spend
34:31
Speaker 3: some of my time actually contributing to that and helping
34:34
Speaker 3: other people learn, which was felt satisfying and meaningful.
34:38
Speaker 1: And now you know multiple college education programs. Did you
34:42
Speaker 1: still working on and through the university beyond bars On
34:45
Speaker 1: loop on your undergraduate thesis, honor thesis from film, philosophy
34:50
Speaker 1: and literature. It's extraordinary. It's so much more than so
34:52
Speaker 1: many people on the outside have or ever will do.
34:56
Speaker 1: So let's talk about your appeals and your prospects for
34:59
Speaker 1: free them.
35:00
Speaker 2: A Chief's appeals were underway by the time we got involved.
35:04
Speaker 2: I had seen a film made by Sebastian's sister Tiffany
35:08
Speaker 2: and Reuben Hurricane Carter and I were obviously floored by
35:12
Speaker 2: the facts here, and we joined David Coke, the appeals
35:15
Speaker 2: lawyer in support of Sebastian and a teeth and I
35:18
Speaker 2: actually attended his state appeal to a three judge panel
35:21
Speaker 2: in Seattle. And this was early on. I mean, we
35:24
Speaker 2: thought this would be a slam dunk. There's no forensic evidence,
35:28
Speaker 2: No alternative suspects allowed to be brought into the courtroom.
35:33
Speaker 2: There's no allowance of Richard Leo, who was an expert
35:37
Speaker 2: on false confessions, and Michael Levine, who was an expert
35:41
Speaker 2: on FBI sting operations. He wasn't allowed into the courtroom either.
35:45
Speaker 2: It was as if Judge Martell had simply decided, We're
35:48
Speaker 2: going to convict these guys in a kangaroo court. But
35:51
Speaker 2: it didn't seem to matter how much sense our arguments
35:53
Speaker 2: made as a chief in Sebastian were seen as guilty
35:56
Speaker 2: in the state of Washington, and the media coverage really
35:59
Speaker 2: made sure they were never going to receive a fair shake.
36:02
Speaker 2: And then Atief later got married to Loretta Fisher, who
36:06
Speaker 2: worked tirelessly on his behalf, and more appeals were filed
36:09
Speaker 2: on the back of her work, also to no avail.
36:13
Speaker 2: Then the Supreme Court of Canada ruled to limit the
36:16
Speaker 2: admissibility of evidence obtained through the Mister Big operation. So
36:20
Speaker 2: now even in Canada, where this evidence was conjured up,
36:23
Speaker 2: the admissibility of these confessions was brought into question. Where
36:28
Speaker 2: in the absence of forensic evidence, as was the case here,
36:31
Speaker 2: these so called confessions would not now be any longer admissible,
36:36
Speaker 2: and that should have been huge, but sadly it was not.
36:40
Speaker 3: It was a period when I didn't know where to turn, really,
36:42
Speaker 3: and out of the blue, Kellie Laudenberg decided to make
36:46
Speaker 3: my case the first one in her series of false
36:49
Speaker 3: confession documentaries, and Ken told me that someone who had
36:53
Speaker 3: watched the confession tapes had become so indignant and so
36:57
Speaker 3: impassionate about the case that she reached out to the
37:00
Speaker 3: person that everyone who knows about him thinks about first,
37:03
Speaker 3: and that's you. Jason.
37:04
Speaker 1: Okay, so I know who you're talking about, But are
37:06
Speaker 1: you at liberty or do you feel comfortable telling us
37:09
Speaker 1: about this amazing mystery woman.
37:11
Speaker 3: So Laken is someone with whom I didn't know her
37:14
Speaker 3: before last year, and now she's become someone very special
37:18
Speaker 3: to me to my talk every day. And it's because
37:21
Speaker 3: of her that you got involved, and of course it's
37:24
Speaker 3: because of her getting you involved that David Kim got
37:28
Speaker 3: involved in. David Kim has been a force of nature
37:31
Speaker 3: in my case. She wrote a seven hundred and two
37:34
Speaker 3: page analysis of this case that found things in it
37:36
Speaker 3: that even I hadn't found, And I thought I'd looked
37:39
Speaker 3: over absolutely everything in my case. And then because he
37:42
Speaker 3: thought I needed the best of palat attorney in the
37:44
Speaker 3: United States, he reached out to Tom Golfian, who's considered
37:48
Speaker 3: by everyone to be the tenth Supreme Court Justice, and
37:51
Speaker 3: certainly Google chose him as their lawyer when they needed
37:55
Speaker 3: to win a case of the Supreme Court of the
37:56
Speaker 3: United States. And it was a miracle to me when
37:59
Speaker 3: Tom got in, and then lar Zarowski, who leads the
38:03
Speaker 3: Washington Innocence Project, became involved in my case. All these
38:06
Speaker 3: things just have been building over the last year and
38:10
Speaker 3: that has completely transformed how I view the future.
38:13
Speaker 1: Now amen to that, and now we're all awaiting the
38:17
Speaker 1: Habeas Corpus proceedings in the Ninth Circuit Court in the
38:20
Speaker 1: United States District for the Western District of Washington. So
38:23
Speaker 1: there's a lot of stuff going on. We're going to
38:26
Speaker 1: keep our audience surprised a bit. We're going to link
38:28
Speaker 1: to the petition use your power, Let's help a Chief
38:31
Speaker 1: and Sebastian get home. There's also a website rerafe Burns
38:35
Speaker 1: Appeal dot com. All of it will be linked in
38:37
Speaker 1: the bio so Ken and Natief. This is the part
38:41
Speaker 1: of the show that I know I look forward to
38:43
Speaker 1: the most that I think our audience does as well.
38:45
Speaker 1: It's called closing arguments. It's the part of the show
38:48
Speaker 1: where I, first of all have the privilege of thanking
38:50
Speaker 1: both of you for joining me and sharing this unbelievable story.
38:56
Speaker 1: And how this works is I'm going to turn my
38:58
Speaker 1: microphone off and leave yours both on, and kick back
39:03
Speaker 1: in my chair and just listen to whatever you have
39:06
Speaker 1: to say anything. We haven't covered anything you want to
39:09
Speaker 1: say at all about anything. And of course, a Tief,
39:12
Speaker 1: we're going to save you the best for last, all
39:14
Speaker 1: due respect to you, Ken. Yeah, so Ken, let's go
39:18
Speaker 1: to you first, and then you can just hand the
39:20
Speaker 1: mic off to a Tief and I'm just going to
39:22
Speaker 1: sit back and listen.
39:24
Speaker 2: So, as I said before, this case came to us
39:27
Speaker 2: as a result of the movie that Sebastian Burns's sister
39:30
Speaker 2: did back in two thousand and seven. It was at
39:33
Speaker 2: the Vancouver International Film Festival and I happened to be
39:37
Speaker 2: in the audience. I saw this and realized that the
39:41
Speaker 2: Burnses were in the audience. They had been introduced, So
39:44
Speaker 2: I went up to them and I said, I'm working
39:46
Speaker 2: for Reuben Hurricane Carter, and I think this case would
39:49
Speaker 2: be of interest to him. Do you want some help?
39:51
Speaker 2: And of course they did, and so I got this
39:55
Speaker 2: case in front of Ruben and he was infuriated by
39:58
Speaker 2: the way a pair of teenagers had been manipulated by
40:01
Speaker 2: people who should have known better but were trying to
40:04
Speaker 2: burnish their own reputations. And to me, this story is
40:08
Speaker 2: really about friendships, both the one that a Tief and
40:12
Speaker 2: Sebastian shared as well as the one between the Muslim
40:15
Speaker 2: community and other faith based communities in Canada that doctor
40:20
Speaker 2: Tariq Refae and later Riyasaid Ali Khan tried to foster
40:25
Speaker 2: an endeavor for which they paid with their lives. Well,
40:29
Speaker 2: the potential of these two young friends and the greater
40:32
Speaker 2: friendship between those communities both were snuffed out.
40:37
Speaker 1: A Tief refe over to you, Nasham, and I have
40:40
Speaker 1: been wrongly in person for over twenty seven years and the.
40:43
Speaker 3: Same age today my parents were when I was a kid,
40:46
Speaker 3: when they were raising me. I imagine looking back in my
40:49
Speaker 3: life with their eyes and every day is going to
40:52
Speaker 3: struggle to keep going. And I still hardly believe all
40:55
Speaker 3: that has happened. But what I feel most now is
40:58
Speaker 3: gratitude amazingly. When I was a child, my parents told
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Speaker 3: me stories about the hard times they had in their
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Speaker 3: early years in Vancouver when my dad was looking for work,
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Speaker 3: how they would eat boiled potatoes off newspapers, sad on
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Speaker 3: the floor. And I understood when I was a kid
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Speaker 3: that life would involve struggles, but I didn't fathom them
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Speaker 3: just how much the caring and generosity of others would
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Speaker 3: need for my life, that this ground swell of support
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Speaker 3: would make it possible for my struggle to matter. Still today,
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Speaker 3: I owe so many people so much, not only Reuben
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Speaker 3: and Ken, Tom and you, Jason, all of you people
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Speaker 3: who were like Oscar Schindler's. You know, in our day
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Speaker 3: and age of local convictions and massive fruserations, that feeling
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Speaker 3: of gratitude is what carries me through every day, and
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Speaker 3: I'm just grateful to have had the opportunity to feel
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Speaker 3: that love and care for someone for some small life.
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Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction. Please support your
42:02
Speaker 1: local innocence organizations and go to the links in our
42:05
Speaker 1: bio to see how you can help. I'd like to
42:08
Speaker 1: thank our production team, Connor Hall, Justin Golden, Jeff Clyburn
42:12
Speaker 1: and Kevin wardis The music on this show, as always,
42:15
Speaker 1: is by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be
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Speaker 1: sure to follow us on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction, on
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Speaker 1: Twitter at wrong Conviction, and on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast.
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Speaker 1: Wrongful Conviction is a production of Lava for Good Podcasts
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Speaker 1: and association with Signal Company Number one