Killing Suspect Ordered Returned to N.Y. : Black Liberation Army Demonstrators Support Shakur at Hearing

Amid tight security and with chanting supporters outside the federal courthouse, Mutulu Shakur, long-sought by the FBI as the alleged leader of the revolutionary Black Liberation Army, was ordered returned from Los Angeles to New York City Tuesday to face murder and robbery charges.

U.S. Magistrate James J. Penne ordered Shakur’s return during a brief hearing in a small courtroom crowded with supporters, who demonstrated their support of Shakur by standing and applauding the 35-year-old defendant and crying, “Free land.”

Before the hearing started, Shakur, clad in blue coveralls, rose, faced the audience and said, “This is not a struggle here. This is just a show. We just listen and then go. The struggle is in the community.”

Shakur was tracked down last week in West Los Angeles and arrested by two New York City detectives. He had been on the FBI’s 10-most-wanted list since 1982, following an October, 1981, armored car robbery in which two police officers and a Brink’s guard were killed.

With Shakur’s arrest, the FBI said that all but one of half a dozen suspects thought to have participated in the Nanuet, N.Y., robbery have been seized. According to authorities, the holdup was a combined operation by the radical Black Liberation Army and Weather Underground.

Four suspects, identified as members of the two organizations, were arrested at the scene, where a Brink’s guard was killed. Two Nyack, N.Y., policemen were cut down with automatic weapon fire at a roadblock a few minutes later.

Shakur’s companion, Cheri Laverne Dalton, 35, remains at large and is considered armed and dangerous, according to the FBI. Dalton is accused of driving the get-away car in the Brink’s robbery.

In Tuesday’s hearing, Shakur’s lawyer, Raymond Mapp of Los Angeles, asked Judge Penne to take steps to assure his client’s safety. Penne replied that he was certain that U.S. marshals could provide the necessary security.

Mapp later told reporters that Shakur was concerned about his safety from “custodial authority” because his client’s activities have made him “a target of police and governmental harassment.”

“Dr. Shakur is a New Afrika freedom fighter,” the lawyer said. “He and his supporters are dedicated to founding a New Afrika in the United States.”

The Black Liberation Army, an outgrowth of the Black Panther party, is devoted to establishing a separate, black “New Afrika” nation in the country’s southern states.

Outside the courthouse, a score or more of Shakur supporters walked a circular picket line chanting: “Shakur: Freedom Fighter” and “USA: Terrorist.”

A statement handed passers-by described Shakur as “a New Afrikan (black) revolutionary and patriot dedicated to the liberation of the New Afrikan nation.” He was identified as “a founding member of the Provisional Government of the Republic of New Afrika” and as a licensed doctor of Chinese medicine and acupuncture.