Albany Karen Community: July 2010

Defense: Finding family of Burmese suspect is crucial to child murder plea

By stephen hunt
The Salt Lake Tribune
Updated Jul 10, 2010 01:15PM

Despite a recent angry courtroom outburst by a Burmese refugee accused of killing 7-year-old Hser Ner Moo, a defense attorney said Friday he is confident of resolving the case with a plea deal.

But defense attorney Michael Peterson told a 3rd District Court judge that Esar Met’s acceptance of a plea offer is dependant upon re-establishing contact with the defendant’s family.

Peterson said the defense team had lost contact with Met’s family members, who live in Arizona.

“We are moving heaven and Earth to find them,” Peterson told Judge Judith Atherton. “I’ve assured the state I’m confident we can resolve the case with the offer they have extended.” But Peterson could not say when that will occur.

Prosecutor Rob Parrish said he was willing to wait, but “at some point, we will need to move forward with the case.”

(Leah Hogsten | The Salt Lake Tribune) An ouburst by defendant Esar Met, 23, derailed an expected plea hearing Friday in Judge Judith Atherton's 3rd District Courtroom. A status conference hea set foruly 9. Met is charged with aggravated murder and child kidnapping in the 2008 death of 7-year-old Hser Ner Moo.

The terms of the plea offer were not discussed in court. A status hearing was set for Oct. 1.

Met, believed to be 23 years old, is charged with aggravated murder and child kidnapping for allegedly beating, sexually assaulting and strangling Hser Ner Moo at his South Salt Lake apartment on March 31, 2008.

Met was expected to accept a plea deal during a May 21 hearing, but instead denied any guilt.

“I was forced by the authorities here to say that I did it, but I didn’t kill,” Met told the judge, according to an interpreter for the victim’s family, who translated the statement for The Tribune.

Despite Met’s denial, Peterson said Friday he was “more than cautiously optimistic” of achieving a resolution.

The judge said she was willing to work with the defense given the “unique” language and cultural issues the case presents.

After the hearing, Parrish told reporters that Met’s family are important because they can offer Met emotional support and understand his background and history.

Met’s family are expected to assure him that the United States government is not like the governments of Burma and Thailand, where Met grew up and where criminals are “summarily dealt with,” Parrish said. “It’s appropriate to have them here.”

Met and Hser Ner Moo lived in separate parts of the same refugee camp for Burmese refugees in Thailand before immigrating to the United States, where both lived at the South Parc Townhomes, 2250 S. 500 East.

Esar Met allegedly killed the girl inside his basement apartment, where her body was found a day after her disappearance sparked a massive search of the neighborhood.

An autopsy determined she died of blunt force trauma to her head, neck and torso. Some injuries were consistent with strangulation or suffocation, and physicians also found evidence of sexual assault.
Hser Ner Moo was last seen alive at about 2 p.m. on March 31, 2008, when she left her family’s apartment and was seen by a neighbor walking south, in the direction of apartment No. 472, where Met was living, according to the charging documents. Police have said the girl was dead within an hour of leaving home.

Met was located by police about 10 p.m. the next day at his aunt’s Cottonwood Heights home.
According to a probable cause statement filed with the jail, Met admitted killing Hser Ner Moo while “attempting to confine the victim to the residence by force.” Prosecutors have said they have no information about whether the girl was lured into the apartment, or whether the crime was planned or opportunistic.

The case bogged down in December 2008, when the defense raised questions about Met’s mental competency. According to a March 2009 court docket entry, the defense intended to ask the judge to appoint mental evaluators, but nothing was ever filed with the court.

The defense has also raised questions about Met’s age, noting they have found no birth records for him in either Burma or Thailand. According to what Met has told jailers, he is now 23. However his mother, Ra He Mar, has said her son is older.

Met is being held at the Salt Lake County jail in lieu of $2.5 million bail.

shunt@sltrib.com

Early Palace opening for 'Salt'

By STEVE BARNES, Staff writer
Friday, July 9, 2010
ALBANY -- The free Capital Region premiere of the action movie "Salt," starring Angelina Jolie and shot in part in Albany over several weeks in spring 2009, will be held at the Palace Theatre.

The special screening is scheduled for 8 p.m. Thursday, July 22, (doors open at 7 p.m.), the night before the film opens nationwide. Tickets will be available starting at 10 a.m. today at Albany visitors center at Quackenbush Square, at the foot of Clinton Avenue at Broadway; and the City of Albany Office of Special Events, located on the fourth floor of Albany City Hall.
Beginning Monday, tickets also will be available from the Palace box office at 19 Clinton Ave. All tickets must be picked up in person, are general admission and are limited to four per person.

The entryway is being repaired more than two years after a car accident sent a vehicle smashing through the front doors of the historic theater.

A set of eight new doors is being installed across the front of the theater, beneath its marquee. Since the accident, on March 31, 2008, the half of the expanse destroyed in the crash has been covered with wood.

Angry outburst derails plea hearing in Burmese girl’s slaying

By Julia Lyon
and stephen hunt
The Salt Lake Tribune
Updated May 22, 2010 12:48AM

A Burmese refugee accused of killing 7-year-old Hser Ner Moo two years ago angrily denied his guilt in court on Friday.

“I was forced by the authorities here to say that I did it, but I didn’t kill,” said Esar Met, according to an interpreter for the girl’s family, who quoted his words to The Tribune.

Hser Ner Moo’s family, who traveled from Iowa for Friday’s hearing, had been told Met would plead guilty and be sentenced, the interpreter said.

But when Met’s attorney told the judge they had reached a resolution in the case, Met, whose legs and hands had been shaking, shook his head to the contrary. Met then spoke passionately in Burmese, after which his attorneys requested a break so they could confer with Met.

About an hour later, 3rd District Judge Judith Atherton returned to the bench and defense attorney Michael Peterson said, “There are inquiries we need to make and then report back.”

A status hearing was set for July 9.

(Leah Hogsten | The Salt Lake Tribune) Defendant Esar Met, 23, is flanked by his attorneys Denise Porter, left, and Michael Peterson, right, and Burmese interpreter Maung Maung, far right. An expected plea hearing Friday in 3rd District Court on Friday was delayed when Met denied he agreed to a plea deal.

(Al Hartmann | The Salt Lake Tribune) Cartoon Wah, father of Hser Ner Moo, leaves a plea hearing for Esar Met in Judge Judith Atherton's courtroom in 3rd District Court in Salt Lake City on Friday. Met is accused of killing 7-year-old Hser Ner Moo in 2008.

Following Met’s courtroom outburst, Hser Ner Moo’s parents, Pearlly Wa and Cartoon Wah, wiped away tears. They moved to Marshalltown, Iowa, last fall, overwhelmed with frustration about the stalled case.

Met, believed to be 23 years old, is charged with aggravated murder and child kidnapping for allegedly beating, sexually assaulting and strangling the girl at his South Salt Lake City apartment on March 31, 2008.
“It’s a strange feeling when my daughter that he killed, that he can actually have the nerve to say he did not kill her,” the victim’s father, Cartoon Wah, said through an interpreter after the hearing.
Hser Ner Moo was in second grade when she died.

“What I feel deep down in my heart, this was my only daughter,” the father said. “I asked of her from God. How am I going to get her back?”

Esar Met and Hser Ner Moo lived in separate parts of the same refugee camp for Burmese refugees in Thailand before immigrating to the United States, where both lived at the South Parc Townhomes, 2250 S. 500 East.

Esar Met allegedly killed the girl inside his basement apartment, where her body was found a day after her disappearance had sparked a massive search of the neighborhood.

An autopsy determined she died of blunt force trauma to her head, neck and torso. Some injuries were consistent with strangulation or suffocation, and physicians found evidence of sexual assault.

Hser Ner Moo was last seen alive about 2 p.m. on March 31, 2008, when she left her family’s apartment and was seen by a neighbor walking south, in the direction of apartment No. 472, where Met was living, according to the charging documents. Police have said the girl was dead within an hour of leaving home.
Met was found by police about 10 p.m. the next day at his aunt’s Cottonwood Heights home.
According to a probable cause statement filed with the jail, Met admitted killing Hser Ner Moo while “attempting to confine the victim to the residence by force.” Prosecutors have said they have no information about whether the girl was lured into the apartment, or whether the crime was planned or opportunistic.

The case bogged down in December 2008, when the defense raised questions about Met’s mental competency. That was also the last time Met had appeared in court until Friday.

According to a March 2009 court docket entry, the defense intended to ask the judge to appoint mental evaluators, but nothing was ever filed with the court.

The defense has also raised questions about Met’s age, noting they have found no birth records for him in either Myanmar, formerly called Burma, or Thailand. According to what Met has told jailers, he is now 23. However his mother, Ra He Mar, has said her son is older.

Hser Ner Moo’s mother, Pearlly Wa, was stoic outside the courtroom after the hearing ended.
“Everything works out for the best,” she said through an interpreter. “The proceedings have shown that justice will be served.”

But some community members who knew Hser Ner Moo remain angry.

“I’m a little bit disgusted,” said Juanita Huertero, a friend of the family who attended the hearing. “It seems like he has more rights than the victim’s.”
Met is being held at the Salt Lake County jail in lieu of $2.5 million bail.

jlyon@sltrib.com shunt@sltrib.com

Fireworks at Empire State Plaza in Albany on 4th July 2010

Water festival from Rensselaer, NY 2010

Ambush (KNLA vs SPDC)

Is it safe to live in Burma? Many Karen people flee from their state to other countries. Our rebellion KNLA fighting to protect our villagers and people. We do not want to kill each other but finally we have to kill.

Viewers discretion is advised.

Live Music Concert (Invitation from Indiana)

World Refugees Day in Washington Park (Albany)

This is the video that taken on World Refugee day in Albany.

'Survivors' enjoy respite

Picnic gathering in Albany attracts 250 refugees who seek a new, safer future

By TOM KEYSER, Staff writer
First published in print: Sunday, June 20, 2010

ALBANY -- Mu Mu was born and lived the first 21 years of her life in refugee camps in Thailand. She is 24 now, and Saturday at Washington Park she wore a smile as bright as her traditional clothes from her family's native Myanmar, formerly Burma.

She was one of more than 250 refugees attending a picnic to mark World Refugee Day, which is today. From Myanmar, Iraq, Bhutan and countries in Africa, the refugees living in the Capital Region sang and danced, ate, lounged in the shade and met other refugees. Their children played on slides and swings, kicked a soccer ball, took mighty swings at a Whiffle ball and flailed away at a pinata.

"These are the survivors," said Jill Peckenpaugh, director of the Albany office of the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants.

The refugees at the picnic, and the estimated 500 additional refugees who will be resettled in the Capital Region this year, all fled their country because of fear of persecution. They've lost relatives and friends to disease, murder and war.

With initial help from the United Nations and then the USCRI or Catholic Charities of the Roman Catholic diocese of Albany, they are learning English, maintaining apartments, working or trying to find work, and navigating this new universe in the United States.

Mu Mu's family built their own house in the camps -- out of bamboo and leaves. She had never seen a real building until she came to Albany. She had gotten married in the camps and had a child. She had a second one in Albany.

She got a job at first cleaning toilets at Albany Medical Center. She worked hard, worked her way up and three weeks ago started training for a new job, drawing blood from patients.

"We don't have our own house yet or our own car yet," Mu Mu said. "But we are enjoying our life."

There are an estimated 15 million refugees in the world, and fewer than 1 percent get resettled, according to agencies that assist refugees.

"We are lucky to have these gracious, driven people living in our country. And we're especially lucky to have them in Albany," said Jolene Roosenberg, a volunteer who works with refugees "They get into your heart. They become your family."

Ali Kurady sat quietly under a tree with his family. He was a doctor in Iraq who escaped to Dubai, worked as a pediatric doctor for two years, and then was resettled in Albany. He arrived with his wife and three children three months ago.

His older brother, also a doctor, was murdered in Iraq, he said. Sometimes, he said, people were killed, especially professional people, for no apparent reason.

Kurady, who speaks passable English, is taking English classes, as are his wife and children. He plans to take the exams as soon as possible so he can work as a doctor here.

At the picnic, he said, he met refugees from other countries as well as one from Iraq. Although he was scared when he first arrived, he said, he is becoming more comfortable.

"This is more than a new home," he said. "This is the future for my children."

Making a home far from home

Refugees from Myanmar add their traditions to Albany's ethnic mix

By PAUL GRONDAHL, Staff writer
First published in print: Tuesday, March 2, 2010

ALBANY-- Steaming mugs of chai are brought out for visitors as the tangy scent of pumpkin leaves cooking in peanut oil waft from the kitchen in the back of a first-floor Grand Street flat.
Two women emerge from the upstairs apartment, shy and smiling, each with a baby propped on a hip. Small children peek out from behind a doorway.
The only sound is the creak of floorboards. There is no TV or telephone. These Karenni refugees from Myanmar -- formerly known as Burma -- can't afford them. Everyone walks barefoot on the shiny hardwood floors, a cultural choice rather than an economic one.

Three men step into the living room after shedding shoes and winter coats in an entryway. They have walked their children home from nearby Giffen Memorial Elementary School. Snow is a new concept for everyone, along with electricity and indoor plumbing. The men sit in silence on plastic lawn chairs in the living room, chewing betel leaves that stain their teeth crimson.
They speak no English and a halting translator can bridge only part of the communication chasm. They've been catapulted from an 18th-century existence into the 21st century almost overnight after arriving in Albany over the summer from a refugee camp on the Myanmar-Thailand border.

None of these Karenni families on Grand Street knew each other in the sprawling refugee camp, where more than 25,000 dispossessed Karenni stayed. They've only met each other and become friends since they came to Albany.
The two Karenni who share this Grand Street address number 12 children and four adults, but none have jobs. Without any English, employment will be difficult to find, particularly in a down economy with high unemployment.
Steah Htoo and her husband, Aung Nge, are the upwardly mobile couple. They both have jobs. He rides with other Burmese men to an auto parts factory in Bennington, Vt. His wife makes beds and cleans rooms at a local motel.
The Karenni are a tribal subgroup of the Karen people in Burma. There are about 300,000 Karenni in a rural region along the Burma-Thai border. The Karenni migrated to this area from Mongolia more than 2,000 years ago. The British recognized their sovereignty with the Karenni State, while other ethnic states in Burma were annexed in 1885.

As an indigenous ethnic minority, the Karenni people were harassed by the Burmese military junta since Burma's independence in 1948, following more than 60 years of British colonial rule. The Burmese military spent decades persecuting the Karenni people, including killings, imprisonment, burning of houses and crops, and land seizures. Tens of thousands of Karenni fled into the jungle or sought shelter in refugee camps.

This modest three-bedroom Grand Street apartment -- with mismatched, donated furnishings and no decorations except for a CDTA bus map, their transportation lifeline, taped to a wall -- is a big step up in terms of comfort.

These two families spent more than a decade cooking over open fires and languishing in crude wooden huts, routinely harassed by the refugee camp police force. They finally beat the odds and gained refugee status, and were allowed to come to the U.S.
Here, each person is given $900 by the federal government to last them for their first three months (the sum was increased from $425 a year ago).

That is supposed to cover rent, food, clothing and household supplies. After 90 days, they can qualify for public assistance, food stamps and Medicaid. If they get a job, they have to begin reimbursing the U.S. government for their airfare from Thailand. Large Karenni families might owe up to $10,000 in airfare. Many pay back their debt at a rate of about $100 a month for more than 10 years. Some live below or just at the poverty level.

"The families who have made it this far are the survivors, the strongest ones," says Jen Barkan, resource manager and volunteer coordinator for USCRI.

Taylor and her husband, Kevin, who live in East Greenbush, help the families read mail, negotiate government agencies and bring household supplies and donated clothing during weekly visits.

The Taylors brought them to see their first movie, with passes donated by owners of the Spectrum 8 Theatres in Albany. They saw "The Fantastic Mr. Fox," and the kids nearly jumped out of their seats when the animated movie began.
"It's very rewarding helping the Karenni people," Taylor says. "They've enriched our lives."
Paul Grondahl can be reached at 454-5623 or by e-mail at pgrondahl@timesunion.com.

Volunteers sought
USCRI needs volunteers and assistance with the Karenni refugee resettlement. If you're interested in helping, call the Albany field office at 459-1790.

http://uscri.refugees.org/site/PageNavigator/Albany/AlbanyHomeFeature3

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