Participants: Lincoln Steed (Host), Todd McFarland
Series Code: LI
Program Code: LI000206A
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00:22 Welcome to "The Liberty Insider."
00:25 This is the program bringing you up to date news, views, 00:27 information and discussion on religious liberty events 00:31 in the United States and around the world. 00:33 My name is Lincoln Steed, editor of Liberty Magazine 00:36 and I've a very special guest on the program, Todd McFarland, 00:40 esquire, lawyer and Associate General Counsel 00:44 of the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists 00:47 and more importantly someone in the interest of disclosure 00:50 that I work very closely with. 00:51 You're assigned to Liberty Magazine 00:54 and you're either amender or fixer, I don't know which-- 00:59 Both, advisor. Yes both. 01:02 But we really appreciate what you do 01:04 and as you reminded me recently 01:06 you also write now and then for Liberty Magazine 01:08 so you're a big part of what we do. 01:12 I want to talk to you about religious liberty 01:15 on an international stage but I will give a disclaimer first. 01:20 When we talk about it Seventh-day Adventist 01:22 obviously we have a very special concern 01:24 for our own freedom of witness all around the world. 01:28 But we do know that religious liberty 01:30 is not confined or the need to create 01:32 a practical functional religious liberty. 01:35 All religions at one time or another 01:38 or one place or another are prosecuted. Right. 01:41 But our church is been just galvanize 01:45 by word that in the country of Togo 01:48 a Seventh-day Adventist leader is in prison 01:51 on a case that doesn't really seem 01:53 directly because of his faith but I think that, 01:55 that's the subtext of what's going on. 01:57 You know, as extra credit-- Tell us about the story. 02:00 Because it's the oddest story I've heard in many decades. 02:03 Right and the extra credit to members 02:05 who confine Togo on a map 02:07 it is a country in West African in the horn. 02:10 You know, African cones, 02:12 its right there next to Ghana and Benin. 02:14 It's on-- yeah, as it tips down 02:16 it's really facing south but it's on the west. 02:19 It is West Africa in-- Next to Ghana, right? 02:22 Next to Ghana in Benin and real close to Nigeria. 02:25 Lome is the capital and that's where 02:27 our Pastor Antonio Monteiro and the church member of Bruno 02:32 is incarcerated there on suspicion of 02:36 basically what we would call in the United States 02:38 conspiracy to commit murder, it is a bizarre case, 02:42 it is odd, it is filled with contradictions 02:46 and you know, I'm not sure we have the full story this day 02:49 like I'm pretty confident we don't. 02:51 But essentially in the nutshell what happened was 02:54 that in 2011, on the fall 2011 there was a series of murders. 03:02 Yeah, plenty. 03:03 Yeah, as we-- you know, 03:04 even giving the exact number of murders is been difficult 03:06 but some number of murders of women 03:08 in and around of the capital there of Lome 03:12 and women were usually found outside of the town 03:15 in the brush and scrub and so forth outside of Lome. 03:19 Some indication they may have been 03:21 sexually assaulted in some of the cases. 03:24 And they are blooded in-- 03:25 Well, no, we'll get to that in a second. 03:28 So there was a lot of pressure 03:30 and lot of news reports to test theses murders 03:34 and someone in rights groups and so forth 03:36 started to put pressure on the government 03:38 so the government started 03:39 to create an actual special group of Jon-d'arms. 03:43 Sort of a French phrase for a law enforcement 03:45 or a type of law enforcement to try to solve these murders. 03:49 I believe at one point they thought they found the person 03:52 but then the murders continued 03:54 they've been you know, either release that person 03:56 once they realize it wasn't them. 03:58 They then continued to investigate 04:01 and they came across a gentleman, 04:03 who's walking down the road with a young girl 04:06 who was one of the street vendors 04:08 and started to question him and so on 04:11 and they suspected that he might be involved in this. 04:14 They took him back to the police station 04:16 and through, what might be best described euphemistically 04:19 as enhanced interrogation techniques. 04:22 He end up confessing to killing these woman. 04:24 Of course, they were convinced that he wasn't doing this alone. 04:27 He had people who helped him or supported him or whatever. 04:29 A known name. 04:31 Right, so they started to put pressure on him. 04:32 What he did was he started naming names of people 04:34 who he knew who had been helping him. 04:37 What turned out this gentleman 04:38 in the weeks and months prior to that 04:41 had shown up at the Adventist Union Head Quarters therefore 04:44 its an Sahel Union and asked to speak with the pastor. 04:49 And you know and this actually happens our head quarters 04:50 from time to time, people will show up 04:52 and so you know just who happened to be there 04:54 and Pastor Monteiro who is 04:56 the family ministries coordinator for that union 04:58 for that regional part of West Africa 05:00 for the Adventist Church was available and so met with him. 05:03 He took him to church a couple of times, 05:05 drove him in his car, 05:06 helped him out and gave him some cloths. 05:08 He met--this gentleman met another church member Bruno 05:12 who was there who also helped him out 05:14 and drove him in his car and so he was one of-- 05:17 there's about eight people that he named 05:18 and two of them are church members that he had named. 05:20 And so back in March of 2012 05:24 about a year ago as we sit here today 05:28 it was, he was arrested and he's been in jail 05:31 since that time in Lome, Togo. 05:33 And I visited him in that jail 05:35 and I can assure you it is not a good place to be. 05:38 In fact, aren't those jails 05:39 pretty much run by the prisoners? Yeah. 05:41 And relatives bring the food 05:44 and just passed into them separately. Right. 05:45 They're taking care of themselves 05:47 and because they're criminals 05:48 as well as some poor unfortunates in there but-- 05:51 Well it is, it is not a dangerous situation 05:54 as well as stable situation. 05:55 They are way, way overcrowded I mean, its-- 05:58 And many people died just from disease. 06:00 If you don't have someone helping you on the outside 06:03 you know, you're time in there is not-- It's going to be short. 06:06 And you know even so what our Pastor Monteiro 06:09 and the other church member, thie wives 06:12 sort of one come in the morning one comes in the afternoon 06:13 they bring food and got to bring it daily 06:15 because you can't really store there anything. 06:18 Yeah there're guards and so forth 06:19 arm guards and everything on the outside 06:21 but inside it's basically prisoners who run it. 06:25 But, you know, the one thing that did happened 06:28 when Pastor Monteiro came there 06:29 we've got reports that he actually, 06:31 you know, he's well respected there. 06:33 They understand he is a pastor, 06:35 he's been able to minister in there 06:37 violence had actually is going down since he's been there. 06:40 So he had a positive effect on the prison 06:42 but it's still a very dangerous place to be. 06:45 And he hasn't been brought to trail? 06:47 No so, you know, 06:49 lot of countries including sporadically at least Togo. 06:53 You know, again we use this phrase in the last show, 06:55 you know, this title of a phrase pretrial detention. 06:57 So you know, this idea that, 06:59 you know, before you've been convicted of a crime, 07:02 you know, the government can assure in circumstances 07:04 you know, put you in jail and hold you. 07:06 You know, in our constitution we have two big guarantees 07:11 that don't necessary exist in Togo. 07:13 One of them is to bail, not having unreasonable bail. 07:17 Now you don't get bail all the time. 07:18 And the second is this idea of a speedy trail. Yeah. 07:21 And the reason that our founding fathers 07:23 in their wisdom put these in as they-- 07:25 that this has happen before 07:26 and has happening for centuries which is-- 07:28 Terror of London. 07:29 Right, people get throwed in jail 07:31 and getting your day in court or whatever is impossible. 07:34 You wait and the rulers disposition when he feels-- 07:39 Right, when they feel and people have been 07:40 you know, this just come from 07:42 the International Human Organization 07:43 people been held in prison in Togo 07:46 for seven, eight years before they go to jail. 07:47 There was one case 07:49 in which a woman was suspected of killing her kid. 07:50 She was in jail eight years before she got when to trial. 07:54 Finally went to trial they just decide, 07:56 well, we convict you in time served and released her. 07:58 So you know, if she really killed her kid 08:01 she should probably be in jail 08:02 for little longer than eight years. 08:04 And if she didn't kill him 08:06 then you know, that's a huge injustice. 08:08 Something that we should share on this situation 08:12 is Togo is not a majority Christian country. 08:16 Christians are about 20 to 25%. 08:19 I think they are just-- it is mostly-- 08:21 it is of course more Muslims in the north. 08:23 I looked it up and it's officially 08:26 at least 20 to 25% Christians, 20 to 25% Muslim. Right. 08:31 And roughly half there about, they are anonymous. 08:34 Yeah, yes, you're right. 08:36 So what I read is that, that it's not a necessarily 08:40 a welcoming environment for Christians generally 08:43 or there will be miss information and some-- 08:47 maybe suspicion is the strong word 08:48 but you know it's not a sympathy 08:51 necessarily for a Christian minister 08:53 or representative of an alien religious view point. 08:57 And we know that because of what happened. 08:59 Remember when he was in prison 09:00 very quickly there were television programs 09:03 on Seventh-day Adventists that were wild and woolly 09:07 even mixed in the idea that the Seventh-day Adventists 09:10 do drain blood and all these sort of these things. 09:13 You've mentioned draining blood 09:14 and i probably should explain what that's about because-- 09:16 so, you know, when he named names about people 09:19 is that why would Pastor Monteiro-- 09:21 why would this elder gentelman 09:22 you know, be involved in the murders. 09:24 And the theory was-- what this guy confess to was 09:27 that Monteiro and the other one had hired him 09:29 to kill these woman to drain there blood 09:32 so they could--he could then sell it to the Pastor Monteiro 09:35 then to be used presumably in some type of ritual. 09:38 In the fact they searched the union office, 09:40 they searched the Pastor Monteiro's church 09:41 of course, they found no blood. 09:43 I mean this literally meets the definition of what, 09:45 you know, the historic blood liable 09:47 which traditionally and usually has been 09:49 you know used against Jews back in the middle ages and so forth. 09:52 But this idea I could say, it's bizarre, it's fanciful 09:55 it doesn't, I mean, it's not even if he is innocent. 09:58 It's not just that 09:59 pastor Monteiro is innocent of the crime. 10:01 It's an implausible charge. 10:02 Right the crime itself is implausible. 10:04 I mean, not the killing of-- 10:05 you know, the women certainly were killed 10:06 but this idea, their blood was draining so forth 10:08 and you know, and we not tell you-- 10:10 we, you know, be terrific here with our viewers. 10:13 But you know, we've talked to doctors and so forth 10:15 you know, it turns out 10:17 draining someone's blood is not an easy thing to do 10:19 and you got to know what you're doing. 10:21 Unless if they are alive you can do it but-- Right. 10:23 But well, and even then you still got to know what-- 10:25 you know, what to do. Yes, of course. 10:26 And the idea that this you know, untrained gentleman, 10:29 out, literally in the scrub brush of Africa 10:30 was killing these women and draining their blood 10:32 is just bizarre fantasy, I mean, it just didn't happen that way. 10:36 Yes, even after hearing you telling 10:38 and none of us really know the answer to this. 10:40 Right. You've gone over the-- 10:41 Yeah, I was there in the fall of 12. 10:44 But an another church representative, 10:45 one at a time. Yes. 10:47 So that these several contexts but-- 10:50 and you often said that you know, it doesn't make sense, 10:53 but hearing you say it makes me think 10:56 maybe the original guy they took was coerced into confessing 10:59 to something he knew little than nothing about. 11:01 Well, there's no question of this gentleman, 11:03 I mean, over the internal court system 11:06 ordered him to be examined by couple of physicians. 11:10 And the physicians talk to him and got his story 11:12 and I mean, even their report say that, 11:14 you know, he make this up-- 11:16 You know, this is a man who is very susceptible to suggestion, 11:19 there's no way he did this. 11:20 And you know, this was just 11:21 a very marginalized individual there in Togo who got picked up 11:24 and you know, upon extreme questioning 11:26 and you know, what would violate the constitution 11:28 here in the United States. 11:30 You know, he would confessed to anything 11:31 and you know it's bizarre and it didn't happened 11:35 but you know, we met with the government authorities, 11:38 we've met most recently with the President of the Togo, 11:42 with the ambassadors, with the Minister of Justice. 11:44 I met with the Minister of Justice 11:46 when I was over there. 11:47 You know, and every-- 11:48 you know, it's not no one is saying, 11:50 "Oh he's guilty, he needs to stay in jail." 11:51 Its like, oh let the process work out, privately you'll hear 11:53 you know, all we know he is innocent but we just-- 11:54 But the process is not moving. 11:56 Right, and the thing is we waste here, 11:57 I mean, I was there, 11:59 you know, as we sit here today this is you know February 2013. 12:02 I was over there in around Labor Day, 8th of September, 12:06 early September and late August of 2012. 12:09 At that point, oh may be a week, maybe two weeks 12:12 you know I mean it was just brief time 12:14 and you know, and we keep thinking 12:16 immediately it's going to happen and nothing ever happens. 12:19 Yeah, the point I want to bring out is that 12:21 here is a person of faith in a situation 12:26 that where you can't assume the things 12:28 that we do in a normally Christian country 12:31 and when it goes bad for reasons that will discover 12:34 it seems implausible that he's directly involved. 12:38 But even if he had been guilty 12:40 of some traffic infraction or some minor issue. 12:44 What's obvious here and I don't know what it is 12:47 but I'm just saying 12:48 even if there were some little trip thing 12:50 once the situation developed its obvious here 12:52 that there is deep antiquity, miss information 12:55 and even prejudice against the church. 12:57 And I do see this as someone struggling 13:03 for his faith and it's a religious liberty question 13:07 no matter what happens 13:09 on the actual charges that's underlying it. 13:13 We'll back after the break 13:14 because I see that we're zooming into our time. 13:18 I want to talk more about 13:19 not so much Pastor Monteiro but other similar cases. 13:22 So stay with us, we'll right back. |
Revised 2014-12-17