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WHITEY BULGER JUROR SAYS SHE REGRETS MURDER CONVICTION By Michael Rezendes | The Associated Press CHINA'S 'WAR ON TERROR' UPROOTS FAMILIES, LEAKED DATA SHOWS DAILY COURT REVIEW The notorious crime boss James "Whitey" Bulger terrorized Bos- "Appealed to our sense of doing something worthwhile for nightmares — still have them — always slept with lights on helps By Dake Kang | The Associated Press Talking Points available at: ton from the 1970s into the 1990s with a campaign of murder, society," Bulger wrote in a letter to Uhlar reviewed by the AP. when I wake up about every hour from nightmares." For decades, the Uighur imam was a bedrock more likely to end up in a camp themselves, ments leaked to the New York Times revealed extortion, and drug trafficking, then spent 16 years on the lam But nothing could have been further from the truth. The mobster also recalled the supervising physician, the late of his farming community in China's far west. uprooting and criminalizing entire families like the historical lead-up to the mass detention. Rice University after he was tipped to his pending arrest. "The CIA mind control program known as MK-ULTRA Carl Pfeiffer of Emory University, and the technicians who On Fridays, he preached Islam as a religion of Emer's in the process. The latest set of documents came from 6100 Main Street In 2013, Janet Uhlar was one of 12 jurors who found Bulger involved the most extreme experiments on human beings ever would monitor his response to the LSD, asking him questions peace. On Sundays, he treated the sick with Similarly, family background and attitude sources in the Uighur exile community, and Houston, Texas 77005 guilty in a massive racketeering case, including involvement in conducted by any agency of the U.S. government," Kinzer said. such as, "Would you ever kill anyone? Etc., etc." free herbal medicine. In the winter, he bought is a bigger factor than detainee behavior in the most recent date in them is March 2019. 713-348-0000 11 murders, even after hearing evidence that the mobster was "During its peak in the 1950s, that program and it's director, That questions struck a nerve with Uhlar. After hearing from coal for the poor. whether they are released. The detainees listed come from Karakax Coun- helped by corrupt agents in the Boston office of the FBI. Sidney Gottlieb, left behind a trail of broken bodies and shat- Bulger about MK-ULTRA, "as if I should have known about it," But as a Chinese government mass deten- "It's very clear that religious practice is being ty, a traditional settlement of about 650,000 on South Texas College of Law But now Uhlar says she regrets voting to convict Bulger on tered minds across three continents." she visited him at a Florida federal prison on three occasions tion campaign engulfed Memtimin Emer's targeted," said Darren Byler, a University of the edge of Xinjiang's Taklamakan desert where 1303 San Jacinto Street any of the murder charges. After Bulger was found guilty by Uhlar and the other jurors, to discuss the experiments and started reading everything she native Xinjiang region three years ago, the Colorado researcher studying the use of sur- more than 97 percent of residents are Uighur. Houston, Texas 77002 Her regret stems from a cache of more than 70 letters Bulger a federal judge sentenced him to two life terms plus five years. could find about them. elderly imam was swept up and locked away, veillance technology in Xinjiang. "They want to The list was corroborated through interviews 713-659-8040 wrote to her from prison, some of which describe his unwitting But his life behind bars ended a little more than a year ago, at At one point, she reviewed the 1977 hearings by the U.S. along with all three of his sons living in China. fragment society, to pull the families apart and with former Karakax residents, Chinese iden- participation in a secret CIA experiment with LSD. In a desper- age 89, when he was beaten to death by fellow inmates shortly Senate Committee on Intelligence, which was looking into MK- Now, a newly revealed database exposes make them much more vulnerable to retraining tity verification tools, and other lists and docu- Texas Southern Universtiy ate search for a mind control drug in the late 1950s, the agency after arriving in his wheelchair at the Hazelton federal prison in ULTRA following the first public disclosures of the top-secret in extraordinary detail the main reasons for and reeducation." ments seen by the AP. 3100 Cleburne Street dosed Bulger with the powerful hallucinogen more than 50 Bruceton Mills, West Virginia. No criminal charges have been program. the detentions of Emer, his three sons, and The Xinjiang regional government did not Detainees and their families are tracked Houston, Texas 77004 times when he was serving his first stretch in prison — something filed. The hearings included testimony from CIA director Stans- hundreds of others in Karakax County: their respond to faxes requesting comment. Asked and classified by rigid, well-defined categories. 713-313-7011 his lawyers never brought up in his federal trial. Although much had been written about the CIA's mind field Turner, who acknowledged evidence showing that the agen- religion and their family ties. whether Xinjiang is targeting religious people Households are designated as "trustworthy" "Had I known, I would have absolutely held off on the mur- control experiments before Bulger's trial, Uhlar said she knew cy had been searching for a drug that could prepare someone The database obtained by The Associated and their families, foreign ministry spokesman or "not trustworthy," and their attitudes are University of Houston der charges," Uhlar told The Associated Press in a recent inter- nothing about them until she began corresponding with the for "debilitating an individual or even killing another person." Press profiles the internment of 311 individu- Geng Shuang said "this kind of nonsense is not graded as "ordinary" or "good." Families have 4800 Calhoun Road view. "He didn't murder prior to the LSD. His brain may have renowned gangster following his conviction. "That's just horrifying, in my opinion," Uhlar said. "It opens als with relatives abroad and lists information worth commenting on." "light" or "heavy" religious atmospheres, and Houston, Texas 77004 been altered, so how could you say he was really guilty?" At the Uhlar started writing Bulger, she said, because she was up the question of whether he was responsible for the murders on more than 2,000 of their relatives, neigh- Beijing has said before that the detention the database keeps count of how many relatives 832-531-6300 same time, Uhlar says she would have voted to convict Bulger troubled by the fact that much of the evidence against him he committed." bors and friends. Each entry includes the centers are for voluntary job training, and that of each detainee are locked in prison or sent to on the long list of other criminal counts, meaning he still would came through testimony by former criminal associates who were According to at least two of the several books written about detainee's name, address, national identity it does not discriminate based on religion. a "training center." University of Houston - Downtown likely have died in prison. also killers and had received reduced sentences in exchange for Bulger and his life of crime, associates including corrupt former number, detention date and location, along China has struggled for decades to control Officials used these categories to determine One Main Street Uhlar has spoken publicly about her regret before but says testifying against their former partner in crime. FBI agent John Morris said they assumed Bulger would use the with a detailed dossier on their family, religious Xinjiang, where the native Uighurs have long how suspicious a person was — even if they Houston, Texas 77002 her belief that the gangster was wrongly convicted on the mur- "When I left the trial, I had more questions," she said. LSD experiments to mount an insanity defense, if he were ever and neighborhood background, the reason for resented Beijing's heavy-handed rule. With hadn't committed any crimes. 713-221-8000 der charges was reinforced after reading a new book by Brown After Bulger started returning her letters, Uhlar noticed he caught and tried. detention, and a decision on whether or not to the 9/11 attacks in the United States, officials "It underscores the witch-hunt mindset of University professor Stephen Kinzer: "Poisoner in Chief: Sidney often dated them with the time he had started writing in his But in 2013 Bulger's Boston attorneys, J.W. Carney Jr. and release them. Issued within the past year, the began using the specter of terrorism to jus- the government, and how the government University of Houston Law Center Gottlieb and the CIA Search for Mind Control." The book digs tight cursive style. "He always seemed to be writing at one, two, Hank Brennan, unveiled a novel defense in which they admitted documents do not indicate which government tify harsher religious restrictions, saying young criminalizes everything," said Adrian Zenz, an 100 Law Center into the dark tale of the CIA's former chief chemist and his or three in the morning and when I asked him why, he said it Bulger was a criminal who made "millions and millions of dol- department compiled them or for whom. Uighurs were susceptible to Islamic extremism. expert on the detention centers and senior fel- Houston, Texas 77204 attempts to develop mind control techniques by giving LSD and was because of the hallucinations," Uhlar said. lars" from his gangland enterprise, but was enabled by corrupt Taken as a whole, the information offers After militants set off bombs at a train sta- low at the Victims of Communism Memorial 713-743-2100 other drugs to unsuspecting individuals, including colleagues, When Uhlar asked him to explain, Bulger revealed what he law enforcement officers, especially those in Boston office of the fullest and most personal view yet into tion in Xinjiang's capital in 2014, President Xi Foundation in Washington, D.C. and observing the effects. had already told many others: that since taking part in the LSD the FBI. how Chinese officials decided who to put into Jinping launched a so-called "People's War on Reasons listed for internment include University of St. Thomas "It was encouraging to know I wasn't losing my mind, think- experiments at a federal prison in Atlanta, he'd been plagued Neither Carney nor Brennan would comment on their deci- and let out of detention camps, as part of a Terror", transforming Xinjiang into a digital "minor religious infection," "disturbs other 3800 Montrose Boulevard ing this was important," Uhlar said. "It told me, this is huge. I by nightmares and gruesome hallucinations and was unable to sion — attorney client privilege outlasts a client's death. But massive crackdown that has locked away more police state. persons by visiting them without reasons," Houston, TX 77006 mean, how many lives were affected by this? We have no idea." sleep for more than a few hours at a time. Anthony Cardinale, a Boston attorney who has represented than a million ethnic minorities, most of them The leak of the database from sources in the "relatives abroad," "thinking is hard to grasp" 713-522-7911 Gottlieb's secret program, known as MK-ULTRA, enlisted "Sleep was full of violent nightmares and wake up every hour numerous organized crime defendants, said he would have Muslims. Uighur exile community follows the release and "untrustworthy person born in a certain doctors and other subcontractors to administer LSD in large or so — still that way — since '57," he wrote. opted for an insanity defense, in part because of the abundant The database emphasizes that the Chinese in November of a classified blueprint on decade." The last seems to refer to younger Talking Points doses to prisoners, addicts and others unlikely to complain. "On the Rock at times felt sure going insane," he wrote in evidence against Bulger. government focused on religion as a reason how the mass detention system really works. men; about 31 percent of people considered Art Director: Zack Zwicky In Bulger's case, the mobster and fellow inmates were offered another letter, referring to the infamous former prison on "I would have had him come into court like Harvey Wein- for detention — not just political extremism, The blueprint obtained by the International "untrustworthy" were in the age bracket of 25 reduced time for their participation and told they would be tak- Alcatraz Island, in San Francisco Bay, where he was transferred stein, all disheveled, and in a wheelchair," he said. as authorities claim, but ordinary activities Consortium of Investigative Journalists, which to 29 years, according to an analysis of the data Submit original articles, images, and ing part in medical research into a cure for schizophrenia. from Atlanta. "Auditory & visual hallucinations and violent such as praying, attending a mosque, or even includes the AP, showed that the centers are in by Zenz. commentary for publication to: growing a long beard. It also shows the role of fact forced ideological and behavioral re-educa- [email protected]  Talking Points continued on next to last page  family: People with detained relatives are far tion camps run in secret. Another set of docu-