THE MAKING OF AN AIRPLANE HIJACKER: An American Story

By MUHAMMAD JALAL DEEN AKBAR

THE MAKING OF AN AIRPLANE HIJACKER IS A TRUE STORY ABOUT MUHAMMAD JALAL DEEN AKBAR LIFE. THE BOOK LOOKS INTO THE MIND OF AN AFRICAN AMERICAN WHO WANTED TO PROTEST THE WAY BLACK MEN WERE TREATED IN AMERICA.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ashanti Publishing Group
• Release date: Feb 28, 2015
• ISBN: 9780990983057

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The Making of an Airplane Hijacker

An American Story

MUHAMMAD JALAL DEEN AKBAR

PALMDALE, CALIFORNIA

Copyright © 2013 by Muhammad Jalal Deen Akbar.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher, addressed Attention: Permissions Coordinator, at the address below.

Muhammad Jalal Deen Akbar/Ashanti Publishing Group

809 Vandal Way

Palmdale, California 93551

www.ashantipublishinggroup.com

Publisher’s Note: This is a work of non-fiction. All events, places, times and occurrences are factual.

Book Layout ©2013 Ashanti Publishing Group

Ordering Information:

Quantity sales. Special discounts are available on quantity purchases by corporations, associations, and others. For details, contact the Special Sales Department at the address above.

The Making of an Airplane Hijacker/ Muhammad Akbar. -- 1st ed.

ISBN 978-0-9909830-5-7

To the American public in general and to the American youth in particular. I’d also like to send out a special dedication to Amina Cruz for believing in me and assisting me finalize this book.

Oppression can only survive through silence.

John Locke

The Miami Herald

April 11, 1980 p. 16.

Cuba May Let U.S. Hijacker Go to a Moslem Country

From Herald Staff and Wire Reports

HAVANA-The man who hijacked an American Airlines jet to Cuba said Thursday he acted to escape racial and religious persecution in the United States, the official Cuban news agency reported. A Cuban government broadcast said the hijacker expressed a desire to leave Cuba for a Moslem country, and that he would be allowed to do so.

The news agency, Prensa Latina identified the gunmen as Gerald Leland Marity, 35, originally of Minneapolis, and said he dropped out of dental school at the University of San Francisco last year. The University of San Francisco has no dental school, but the University of California-San Francisco confirmed that a man by that name attended the university from the fall of 1997 until January 1980, when he dropped out.

IF HE is permitted to leave the island and go wherever he wants, it would mark the first time since hijackings to Cuban began more than a decade ago that Cuba hasn’t prosecuted the hijacker, the State Department said in Washington.

However, State Department said late Thursday that had received assurances from Havana that the hijacker would be prosecuted.

Michael Kozak, a legal affairs specialist for the State Department, noted that an executive agreement between the United States and Cuba requiring each country to prosecute hijackers lapsed in April 1977 at the Cuban government’s request.

Nevertheless, the Cubans have continued to abide by its terms, Kozak said, although their motive in doing so may be less to cooperate with the United States than to discourage air piracy. Cuba didn’t want to become a haven for crazies, Kozak said.

STATE DEPARTMENT sources said that if this latest hijacker is released, it could be seen as an attempt by Cuba to tweak us.

Cuban President Fidel Castro has been complaining for years that it appears unfair that he prosecutes hijackers while the United States have never been able to successfully prosecute a Cuban boat hijacker.

But in this case, one State Department official said, it could just be his way of showing to the world that there are people who want to come into Cuba just as much as there are people who want to get out.

Prensa Latina quoted Marity as saying In the United States, slavery formally ended a little more than 100 years ago, but it continues informally. Until a short time ago, we blacks had to struggle against the Ku Klux Klan, but now we have to do it against the police that accost us, and against the Nazi Party.

An FBI source in Miami said that aboard the Boeing 727 during the 10-hour hijacking from Ontario, Calif., to Havana on Wednesday, the grimy-clad gunman. Behaved more like a criminal fugitive than a political fugitive.

Political terrorist generally are verbose and spend the time telling their hostages of their resentment and their reason for their action, the source said. This man said nothing at all. The FBI prepared composite sketches of the hijacker in an effort to identify him.

THE GUNMAN leaped a fence at Ontario International Airport near Los Angeles on Wednesday.

Man Receives 50 Years for Hijacking Airliner to Cuba

Los Angeles Times (1923-Current File) Apr 13, 1982

ProQuest Historical Newspapers Los Angeles Times

(1881-1989) pg. B20

MAN RECEIVES 50 YEARS FOR HIJACKING AIRLINER TO CUBA

A man convicted of hijacking an airliner and forcing the crew to fly him to Cuba was sentenced to 50 years in prison Monday in Los Angeles federal court.

Chief U.S. District Judge A. Andrew Hauk said Muhammad Jalal Deen Akbar deserved the substantial-and I hope not unduly shocking-sentence for commandeering an American Airlines jet on April 9, 1980.

The plane was taken over at Ontario International Airport before any passengers boarded. Seven crew members were aboard, preparing for a flight to Cincinnati via Chicago.

Akbar, 37, a Black Muslim, told Hauk he was forced to leave the country because he was being harassed by whites and couldn’t stay here in peace. He said he also wanted to leave because a leader of his faith had revealed that the United States would be destroyed and he wanted to avoid the coming destruction.

Assistant U.S. Atty. Eric L. Doberteen suggested that Akbar could have avoided these perceived dangers by leaving the country as a paying airline passenger instead of a hijacker.

Daine Wudske, an American Airlines flight attendant, testified at Akbar’s trial last month that the hijacker put a gun to her head and threatened to kill her unless his orders were carried out. The plane landed in Havana and Akbar was taken away by Cuban authorizes.

Dobberteen said evidence showed that Akbar, formerly known as Gerald Leland Marity, returned to the United States last November. He was arrested in Ontario in December.

Akbar would be eligible for parole after 10 years in prison.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

The Making of an Airplane Hijacker

AN AMERICAN STORY

By

MUHAMMAD JALAL DEEN AKBAR

Chapter One

From Childhood to Hell’s Eternity

I was born Gerald Leland Marity on January 5, 1945, out of wedlock to my mother, Geraldine Marity. I had a big brother named Clifford, who was better known as Ski Cup. We lived in the colored folks housing projects in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

I was four years old when I started attending Ascension Elementary School, and I was the only black Catholic in the school. I attended this school for seven years, after which I graduated to middle school. The nuns used to call me their little chocolate drop, but I didn't mind because Sister Grace was the best person in the world to me besides my family. She made sure that I got a good education.

There was another school much closer to my home that all of the other black children attended, but my mom was too smart to let me go to school there. The other black children were always getting into trouble and being sent to reform school or having frequent brushes with the law. So, on the weekends and in the summers, Mom would take me twenty or so miles outside of Minneapolis to my grandmother and grandfather's farm, where I could stay out of trouble.

When I was just two or three years old, my brother's father died, and Mom and my brother were devastated by his death. It hit Mom especially hard because she loved that man so much even though he had turned to alcohol to drown his problems. Four years later, Mom passed away of complications from diabetes. Ski Cup was awarded custody of me, but my Aunt; Althea, in Chicago wanted me, too. My brother was eleven years older than me and feared I'd join a gang, perhaps go to prison, or, worse yet, get killed in Chicago. The courts thought the