Some groups still claim he did not do this crime. Sankofa's supporters brought his case international attention. They also say that it is against international law to put someone to death for a crime they did before they became an adult of 18 years of age.
Such unprecedented convictions based on sole witness are rare but they happen in USA, other known example was Larry Griffin who was executed in 1991.
There are groups to this day trying to clear Shaka of murder.
Gary Graham's last statement
Juliusz Słowacki
Juliusz Slowacki (September 3, 1809 - April 3, 1849) was a Polish poet. He was born on August 23, 1809, according to the Old Calendar. September 4 is often given as his birthday but the calculation between days was wrong by one day. Slowacki is thought of as being as good a poet as most of the famous Polish writers. These include Mickiewicz, Norwid, Reymont (author of "Chlopi"), Wybicki, Krasinski and Sienkiewicz. He is buried in Wawel Cathedral in Krakow. This is the same crypt as Mickiewicz. He is considred third most important Polish poet.
His work included romantic poems, plays and sonnets included "Balladyna", "My Testament", "King Ghost", "Fantazy", "Kordian", "Beniowski", "Agamemnon’s Tomb", "Silver Dream of Salomea", "Hymn", "Lilia Weneda" and "Anhelli".
Slowacki was first buried on April 5 1849 in Paris's famous Montmartre cemetery. Because he was not popular at the time, only about 30 people went to his funeral. In 1927, General Joseph Pilsudski ordered his body be dug up. It was taken back to Poland and honorably reburied on June 28 1927 in Krakow in the famous Wawel crypt for Polish nobles. He was buried with full military honors as a Polish hero. Pilsudski said: "Time to forget Slowacki is over, as long as there is Polish language, Slowacki will live on forever!"
Prominent Poles
Mistreat
Mistreat is a pro-white hard rock/Oi!/Rock Against Communism band from Kouvola, Finland. The band was formed in 1988.
Red dwarf
A red dwarf is a kind of star. Red dwarf stars are smaller than half the size of the Sun. They are also cooler than most stars. Red dwarfs burn their fuel slowly, so they shine with less light than hot stars.
Red dwarf stars are the most common in our galaxy, at least near our sun. However, since red dwarf stars are cool and small, none can be found with the naked eye. The closest star to the Earth is named Proxima Centauri. The Latin word "proxima" means "nearest to". Proxima Centauri is a red dwarf.
Red dwarfs can live trillions of years, much longer than brighter stars. A red dwarf dies when it burns all of its fuel. To start with, the fuel is the chemical element hydrogen. At present, no red dwarf star is known which has gone beyond this stage.
Red dwarfs are small stars that are around 0.2 solar mass (the sun is equal to 1 solar mass). This is small for a star but is still 60,000 times the mass of the Earth. They are formed in nebulas, like all stars are, and originally they are protostars. They start their nuclear fusion about 100,000 years after being created when they get their red glow, this is also where they get their heat. These stars burn at less than 4,000°K.
Even smaller stars are called brown dwarfs.
Ali Khamenei
Grand Ayatollah (Persian: آیت‌الله سید علی حسینی خامنه‌ای "ayatollah Seyyed `Ali Ḥoseyni Khamene'i") (born 19 April 1939) also known as Seyyed Ali Khamene'i, is the current Supreme Leader of Iran. He was the president of Iran from 1981 to 1989.
Canon law
Canon law is the term used for the internal Ecclesiastical law of many churches, such as the Roman Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox Churches and the Anglican Communion of churches.
The Roman Catholic Church has the oldest continuously functioning legal system in the Western World. It is older than the common and European civil law traditions. What began with rules ("canons") adopted by the Apostles themselves at the Council of Jerusalem in the First Century led to a highly complex and original legal system that included norms of the New Testament, of the Hebrew (Old Testament), Roman, Visigothic, Saxon, and Celtic legal traditions with thousands of years of human experience.
Mstislav Rostropovich
Mstislav Leopoldovich Rostropovich (born Baku 27 March 1927; died Moscow, 27 April 2007) was a Russian cellist and conductor. Many musicians say that he was the greatest cellist who ever lived. He played the cello with an amazing technique and musicianship, and asked lots of composers to write cello music for him. He got into trouble with the political leaders of the Soviet Union because he said that people should be free to say their own ideas and opinions. In 1974 he was exiled from his country and continued his career as cellist and conductor in the west. He worked hard to support peace and justice in the world. In November 1989, when the Berlin Wall came down, he took his cello there and sat outside by the ruins of the wall and played. He was allowed back to his own country after the collapse of communism. He received lots of medals and honours.
Mstislav Rostropovich was born in Baku in Azerbaijan which was then part of the Soviet Union. His family were very musical. His mother played the piano and his father played the cello. He had studied with Pablo Casals.
During the Second World War the family moved to Orenburg. He went to the Children’s Music School there and started playing in concerts. In 1943 he went to the Moscow Conservatory to study the cello and composition. His composition teacher was Dmitri Shostakovich. They were lifelong friends and Shostakovich wrote a lot of cello music for him.
Rostropovich won all the best prizes at the Conservatory and was soon very famous. Lots of Russian composers wrote music for him: Reinhold Glière, Aram Khachaturian, Nikolai Myaskovsky, Dimitri Shostakovich and Sergei Prokofiev.
In 1955 he married Galina Vishnevskaya who was a famous soprano in the Bolshoi Opera. Rostropovich was a brilliant pianist and accompanied his wife when she sang recitals.
When he was 29 he became a Professor of Cello at the Moscow Conservatory. Shortly after that he played for the first time in England, performing the Cello Concerto by Dvořák at the Royal Festival Hall. A month later he played at the Carnegie Hall in New York. People had not yet heard of him and the hall was nearly empty. However, the next time he played there the hall was sold out in a few hours.
In 1960 he gave the first British performance of Shostakovich’s Cello Concerto no1. He met Benjamin Britten and they became great friends in spite of the fact that they could not speak one another’s language. Britten wrote cello music for him, including the "" and a Sonata for Cello and Piano. He performed a lot at the Aldeburgh Festival where Britten lived.
He started conducting in 1968. He conducted Tchaikovsky’s opera "Eugene Onegin" with his wife singing the main part of Tatyana. Some people thought his conducting was too full of emotion.
In 1970 he got into trouble with the Soviet politicians because he wrote a letter to the papers saying that the writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn was being unfairly treated. Solzhenitsyn had written about the injustices in the Soviet Union and about life in the labour camps. Solzhenitsyn was not allowed to write any more. Rostropovich let Solzhenitsyn live in his home. The Soviet politicians were angry, so Rostropovich and his wife left the Soviet Union and lived in London, Paris and New York. The Soviet politicians said that they were no longer Soviet citizens. In Switzerland they were allowed to have Swiss passports.
Rostropovich became conductor of the National Symphony Orchestra of Washington, DC. He often conducted the London Philharmonic Orchestra and lots of other famous orchestras. He was a great teacher who inspired lots of young cello students. He made a very large number of recordings.