National Desk
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

WASHINGTON
AGRICULTURE DEPT. FINDS MAD COW VIOLATIONS
Inspectors have found more than 1,000 violations of rules aimed at preventing mad cow disease from reaching humans, the Agriculture Department said yesterday. No contaminated meat reached consumers, the agency said. The rules were created in response to the nation’s first case of mad cow disease in December 2003. They require that brains, spinal cords, and other nerve parts – which can carry mad cow disease – be removed when older cows are slaughtered. The at-risk tissues are removed from cows older than 30 months because infection levels are believed to rise with age.
The Agriculture Department said yesterday it had cited beef slaughterhouses or processing plants 1,036 times for failing to comply with rules on removing those tissues, which are commonly called specified risk materials or SRMs. The violations occurred over 17 months, ending in May. The number of violations amounts to less than 1% of all citations at those plants, said USDA spokeswoman Lisa Wallenda Picard. “At no point in time did SRMs get to consumers,” Ms. Picard said.
The department released the information in response to requests made by several groups under the federal Freedom of Information Act. The records were from January 2004, when the rules went into effect, through May of this year.
– Associated Press
WEST
CALIFORNIA CLERIC IN TERROR-RELATED INVESTIGATION TO BE DEPORTED
SAN FRANCISCO – A cleric facing immigration charges agreed yesterday to be deported to Pakistan, a week after being accused of plotting to open a terrorism camp in California to train followers to kill Americans.
Shabbir Ahmed, 39, will be deported on charges unrelated to terrorism: that he overstayed his religious-work visa while heading a mosque in Lodi, an agricultural town of 62,000 about 30 miles south of Sacramento.
Mr. Ahmed was one of five men from the mosque who were arrested in June, none of whom have been charged with crimes of terrorism. Mr. Ahmed’s decision not to contest the immigration charge, announced in a tiny immigration courtroom, came a week after immigration Judge Anthony Murry called him a “danger to the community” and refused to set bail.
“Mr. Ahmed is ordered removed to Pakistan,” Judge Murry said yesterday.
An FBI agent testified last week that Mr. Ahmed was acting as an intermediary for Osama bin Laden and other terrorists. The agent refused to testify whether Mr. Ahmed was a member of a terror group, saying that information was classified.
Defense lawyer Saad Ahmad said his client has no connection to terrorism, but that Mr. Ahmed decided not to contest the immigration charge because he could have been incarcerated for years.
– Associated Press
HUSBAND OF ‘PEACE MOM’ FILES FOR DIVORCE
FAIRFIELD, Calif. – The husband of Cindy Sheehan, the California mother camped outside President Bush’s ranch in Texas to protest the death of a son who was killed while serving with U.S. forces in Iraq, filed for divorce, according to court documents.
Patrick Sheehan filed a petition for the dissolution of his marriage Friday in Solano County Superior Court. His lawyer did not immediately return a call seeking comment yesterday. The couple’s eldest child, Casey, 24, was an Army soldier killed in April 2004.
Cindy Sheehan said the stress of the death led to the separation of the couple, who were high school sweethearts. It also led her to take her activism just short of the president’s door step, where she has held an anti-war demonstration for more than a week.
Ms. Sheehan, who has been joined by more than 100 anti-war activists, vowed to remain in Texas through Mr. Bush’s August vacation.
– Associated Press
MIDWEST
FARRAKHAN: MEXICAN PRESIDENT WAS RIGHT
MILWAUKEE – Nation of Islam leader Minister Louis Farrakhan said President Fox of Mexico was right to say that Mexican immigrants take jobs “that not even blacks want.”
Although Mr. Fox was sharply criticized for his remarks by some black leaders, Minister Farrakhan said Sunday that blacks do not want to go to farms and pick fruit because they already “picked enough cotton.”
“Why are you so foolishly sensitive when somebody is telling you the truth?” he asked the crowd at Mercy Memorial Baptist Church. He said blacks and Hispanics should form an alliance to correct animosity between the two communities.
Civil rights leaders including Revs. Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton have called on Fox to apologize for the remark. Mr. Fox has said he was commenting on the contributions that Mexicans make to America, and did not mean any offense.
Minister Farrakhan, who spearheaded the 1995 Million Man March that drew hundreds of thousands of people to Washington, D.C., was in Milwaukee to promote the Millions More Movement, which has scheduled a rally October 15 on the National Mall.
– Associated Press
SOUTH
WOMAN PARDONED 60 YEARS AFTER ELECTROCUTION
ALBANY, Ga. – The only woman ever executed in Georgia’s electric chair is being granted a posthumous pardon, 60 years after the black maid was put to death for killing a white man she claimed held her in slavery and threatened her life.
The Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles has decided to pardon Lena Baker and plans to present a proclamation to her descendants at its August 30 meeting in Atlanta, board spokeswoman Scheree Lipscomb said yesterday.
The board did not find Baker innocent of the crime, Ms. Lipscomb said. Members instead found the decision to deny her clemency in 1945 “was a grievous error, as this case called out for mercy,” Ms. Lipscomb said. Baker was sentenced to die following a one-day trial before an all-white, all-male jury in Georgia.
During her one-day trial, Baker testified that E.B. Knight, a man she had been hired to care for, held her against her will in a grist mill and threatened to shoot her if she tried to leave. She said she grabbed Knight’s gun and shot him when he raised a metal bar to strike her.
– Associated Press