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"(T)he term came to signify the whole context of clandestine (mostly illegal) political repression activities, (including) a massive surveillance (program via) wiretaps, surreptitious entries and burglaries, electronic devices, live 'tails' and....bogus mail" (to induce paranoia and) foster 'splits' within or between organizations."
Other tactics included black propaganda, disinformation or gray propaganda, rumor spreading, manufactured evidence, harassment arrests on bogus charges, and assassinations, notably against Fred Hampton and Mark Clark on December 4, 1969 by Chicago police while they slept.
In Pratt's case, Julius Butler was the prosecution's main witness, an FBI/LAPD informant, expelled from the Panthers by Pratt for advocating violence. At trial, he falsely claimed Pratt confessed to the killing.
Later, when Butler was outed as an informer, paid to lie, LA authorities denied Pratt a retrial, keeping him imprisoned wrongfully for another 20 years.
Moreover, according to former FBI agent Wesley Swearingen, Los Angeles Panther headquaters wiretap information showed Pratt was in Oakland when it happened, also confirmed by agency surveillance evidence there. Pratt's defense wasn't told. In addition, in both cities, tapes and other evidence were destroyed to keep an innocent man wrongfully imprisoned for 27 years, eight in solitary confinement, as well as parole denied 16 times.
Delayed Justice Finally Achieved
On May 29, 1997, Judge Everett W. Dickey (an Orange County Reagan appointee), in a sharply worded opinion, reversed Pratt's conviction, ruling prosecutors suppressed evidence to unjustly imprison him in ordering a new trial. At the time, he was America's longest held political prisoner, yet to be fully exonerated.
Over 30 years later in February 1999, it came in a four paragraph Los Angeles County District Attorney, Gil Garcetti, statement, saying:
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