DC Court Interview

Amharic Interpreter Leave Hearing

The Daily Californian Online

Interpreter Requests to Leave Hearing

By KEVIN LEAHY

Contributing Writer

Tuesday, January 29, 2008

Category: News

Tags: GEBRESELASSIE

OAKLAND-A court-certified interpreter stunned a courtroom yesterday when he asked to be removed from a murder case after defense attorneys for two brothers accused of killing three of their in-laws moved to tape-record his translations.

Haile Beyene had been translating the Ethiopian language Amharic for a witness in a preliminary hearing for brothers Asmerom and Tewodros Gebreselassie.

The men have been charged with three counts of murder in the shooting deaths of three members of an Eritrean family in a North Oakland apartment during a Thanksgiving dinner in 2006.

Beyene, who has interpreted in courts for more than 15 years, announced after a lunchtime recess that he was not comfortable continuing in light of complaints from some observers that parts of testimony were being lost in his translations.

“I do not feel comfortable going on after what came up this morning, given the sensitivity of this case,” he told Judge Robert McGuiness. “I believe (the accuracy of the translation) is a question that will continue to be raised.”

The victims of the shooting were 17-year-old Berkeley High School student Yonas Mehari, his sister, 28-year-old Winta Mehari, and their mother, 50-year-old Regba Baharengasi.

Everyone present at the Thanksgiving day shooting is ethnically Eritrean, and are immigrants either from that country or neighboring Ethiopia. Over three days of hearings, the courtroom audience has been comprised of nearly all Eritreans-many of whom speak Amharic?-affiliated with either the Gebreselassies or the Meharis.

Asmerom Gebreselassie’s attorney, Assistant Deputy Public Defender Ray Plumhoff, said observers told him they believed the interpreter was omitting or mischaracterizing parts of the testimony of 21-year-old Angesom Mehari, who jumped out a window to escape the shots.

Angesom Mehari, a younger brother of Winta Mehari, has been on the stand for three days, testifying about the shooting and about events leading up to it. Much of his testimony has come under cross-examination from the defense, who says the shooting was in self-defense.

Plumhoff said later he asked to tape-record the testimony so that “if we needed to bring it to a linguist later on, we could do that.”

Defense lawyers also argued that Angesom Mehari does not need an interpreter. Then the judge stepped in and asked the witness about his formal education in English.

Angesom Mehari said he had taken English as a Second Language classes at local community colleges, but felt more comfortable speaking about the shooting in Amharic.

“I don’t want to guess,” he told the judge. “I need an interpreter to explain what happened to my family.”

The judge sided with prosecutor John Jay that the service of an interpreter was appropriate.

There are only three certified Amharic interpreters serving Alameda County, and a replacement was not immediately available.

Debbie Hailu, an Amharic speaker who has been attending the hearings, expressed concerns about the translation outside court.

“When you’re interpreting a language, no matter your training, it’s also a question of how you put things,” she said. “(Tape-recording) would make sense, just for integrity’s sake.”

In addition, Asmerom Gebreselassie spoke out in court against what he called injustices in the proceedings.

“This is a sick guy,” he said in Jay’s direction before a deputy led him out. “It’s just a fix.”

McGuiness told the defendant to calm down, saying, “you and I are going to get along a lot better if you constrain yourself.”

A court clerk said the hearing will resume at 10 a.m. today if an interpreter is available.

interpreters-of-african-languages.pdf .”

From the St. Paul, Minnesota Pioneer Press:http://www.twincities.com/allheadlines/ci_8003279?nclick_check=1Rape trials are never easy - this one was especially hardIssues of language, culture, religion made the case of a Somali accused of attacking a fellow immigrant even tougher.Pioneer PressArticle Last Updated: 01/18/2008 06:43:08 AM CST

BY EMILY GURNON PIONEER PRESS When allegations of rape enter a courtroom, so can shame, reluctant witnesses and not-so-delicate descriptions of a violent sexual act. Throw in language, cultural and religious factors and you have especially complicated cases like the one involving Rage (pronounced “Rah-gay”) Ibrahim, the 26-year-old native Somali man convicted Tuesday of raping a Somali woman in a St. Paul apartment hallway. The case posed special challenges for the court system and those involved. Witnesses wouldn’t cooperate. The victim almost didn’t show up for the trial. She was heckled in court by other Somali women. And she made statements that seemed untrue. Ramsey County Assistant Prosecutor Jill Gerber said it was one of the more difficult cases she has tried, and she believed until the verdict came in after four hours of jury deliberation that she would lose. “The state has a heavy burden to prove - proof beyond a reasonable doubt,” Gerber said. “This felt more heavy. I felt like I was fighting for this one girl against this whole community. “We believed her,” and it appeared many others didn’t, she said. SOME KIND OF TROUBLE Several people in the largely Somali-occupied Afton View Apartments saw that something was going on in the hallway of the building at 371 S. Winthrop St. - the struggle lasted at least 90 minutes - yet they did not call 911. Some said they thought it was just an argument between two drunks. A surveillance video recording makes clear it was much more. Before the trial started, Gerber said, “I get calls from all these witnesses, saying: ‘I don’t know anything, I didn’t see anything, I didn’t say what the police said I did.’ ” Many Somalis are known to mistrust and fear the police because of experiences they had in their East African homeland, which has been plagued by years of war and political instability. “Trying to build trust with immigrant populations can be difficult,” said St. Paul police Cmdr. Shari Gray. UNCOOPERATIVE WITNESS Hussein Hussein, a man who was drinking with Ibrahim and the woman, made himself scarce at trial time. So Gerber got the judge to sign a “material witness” warrant for his arrest. Such a warrant may be used to detain a witness vital to the case. Hussein cooled his heels in jail for four days, waiting for the trial to start. Once on the stand, Hussein was clearly uncomfortable. He claimed, contrary to the victim’s statement, that he hadn’t been drinking and hadn’t served alcohol to the other two. The vast majority of Somalis are Muslims. The Islamic faith forbids the use of alcohol. Hussein also appeared to skirt questions, frustrating both attorneys. For example, asked by Gerber whether he and Ibrahim had driven to the victim’s house to pick her up, Hussein was evasive. “Before we came to my apartment, I was asleep, and then I was going to my work, and when I went outside I saw him. …” “Did you drive to her house to pick her up? Yes or no?” Later, from defense attorney Jerod Peterson: “Did you take your car and go to Wisconsin to buy alcohol?” “Me and him? He asked me for help. …” “Did you go to Wisconsin?” “It was not evening, it was night. …” VICTIM - ALONE The victim, who was 18 at the time of the rape, faced formidable obstacles. In November, she reported that a friend of Ibrahim’s had approached her in her school cafeteria and offered her $1,000 to drop the charges. She testified in court that she had told none of her family members about the incident. “I didn’t want people to know what I’d been doing. I was embarrassed,” she said. The Pioneer Press is not naming her because the newspaper generally does not identify victims of sex crimes. No one was in court to support the woman except for an advocate from Sexual Offense Services of Ramsey County and another from the county attorney’s office. HECKLERS IN COURT For a few hours on the morning of Jan. 9, the day the trial was to start, it seemed the victim had disappeared. She was not home when she was to be picked up. Opening statements were delayed. Then a call came in to the advocate from Sexual Offense Services: The victim said she was at a house in Minneapolis but did not know the address. She had to stay on the line while police traced the call. “My guess is, her mom and her family put her somewhere to hide her,” Gerber said. “She literally did not know where she was. Police were driving around Minneapolis for about an hour before they found her.” Once in court, the woman spoke softly and wiped her eyes while she testified about the assault. She was interrupted by a coterie of mostly middle-age and elderly Somali women, including the defendant’s mother, who came to support him. Their heckling prompted Judge Michael Fetsch to yell, “It is not appropriate to be making gestures or make faces or comment in any way on the testimony that’s being given!” He asked the court interpreter to translate and promised to eject the next spectator who opened her mouth. A “silence” sign appeared on the courtroom door. Gerber said she interpreted the women’s presence as an attempt to intimidate the victim. TROUBLED TESTIMONY At other points in her testimony, the victim made statements that were clearly untrue - though she may have believed them herself. For instance, she insisted that she was not drunk - all evidence to the contrary. She also said her mother understood English well, then said the older woman didn’t know about the rape, even though she sat next to the victim when a police sergeant interviewed her about the incident. At other times, it seemed as if the victim did not fully understand the questions. “I think you’re confused,” Gerber told her at one point, after she denied telling a sexual assault nurse about the attack. And later: “Do you need the assistance of an interpreter now?” The woman insisted she didn’t. She may have been too proud to admit that she needed the help, Gerber said later. “I think she’s kind of caught between two cultures,” she said. LANGUAGE BARRIER The victim’s use of English was an issue again when it was pointed out that she told police the defendant had “drugged” her. That wasn’t true, the defense charged, and there are results from a urinalysis to prove it. No, the victim said in court, I didn’t mean someone put something in my drink. She was dragged, she said. Two reporters taking notes thought something else: She had talked of being beaten, and in her heavy accent, “drugged” sounded like “struck.” Police also wrote down a birthdate for her at the hospital that she later said was wrong. She was 18, not 26. By way of explanation, she said she was crying at the time, and they must have misinterpreted her. The defense tried to convince the jury that the discrepancies were additional examples of a victim who was not altogether truthful. But it’s often difficult trying to interview a witness who is not a native English speaker, said defense attorney Peterson. “You just don’t know, speaking to someone who’s speaking English as a second language, how much of it is a language issue or how much of it is evasion,” he said. CULTURAL STIGMA Outside the courtroom after the verdict was read, the group of Somali women spoke through an interpreter. The “girl” found herself in a bad situation, having been drinking, one woman said. “We don’t do that, we don’t drink. We don’t go with boys.” Omar Jamal, executive director of the St. Paul-based Somali Justice Center - who supported the defendant - said that many of the older, more traditional Somalis in the Twin Cities sided with Ibrahim because of their belief that, in using alcohol, the woman essentially brought trouble upon herself. (He does not share that view, he said, but believed the evidence did not support a rape conviction.) Many Somalis believed that the court should have given both the defendant and the victim some disciplinary action - send them to rehab or something, Jamal said. IN THE END The victim was not in court for the verdict Tuesday. Gerber said she had heard that the woman was glad to hear of the guilty verdict. She was working with an advocate later to come up with a “safety plan,” Gerber said. She did not know what that might entail. “I’m glad that she was believed,” said Gray, the St. Paul police commander. “It’s an important gain for the community to realize that police can be trusted and we’re going to try the best we can to … be there for them.” Emily Gurnon can be reached at egurnon@pioneerpress.com or 651-228-5522.

Still, Hendzel said the Maryland case also shows that courts often don’t use all the resources available, such as databases maintained by groups like the American Translators Association. Shortly after the Kanneh case was dropped, the association found three Vai interpreters for a government client.

Interpreters say the problem will only likely grow as immigrant communities swell.

“We just can’t create enough good interpreters,” said Hailu Gtsadek, a translator who runs an African language interpreter service in Washington.