Send a birthday card to Sam Hallam, the Hoxton One
Hoxton man Sam Hallam
Sam Hallam will turn 23 on this Friday, 9 July and his family and supporters are requesting birthday cards be sent to him to mark the fifth birthday he is spending behind bars (address below). He is serving a life-sentence for the murder of Essayas Kassahun in October 2004 – a sentence considered by supporters protesting for his innocence as “a serious miscarriage of justice”.
To mark Sam Hallam’s birthday, his family, friends and supporters campaigning for his release and exoneration will continue to raise awareness of his imprisonment for a crime Hallam says he didn’t even witness, let alone commit. New evidence discovered after the conviction further suggests his innocence.
On October 24, 2005, Sam Hallam was found guilty of murder at the Old Bailey and sentenced to life imprisonment, serving a minimum of 12 years, for the murder of Ethiopian chef Essayas Kassahun, who was killed in a brawl involving a gang of numerous teenagers and young men outside the Somerfield supermarket in Old Street.
However, the only evidence suggesting Hallam committed the murder were a series of inconsistent and contradictory statements placing him at the crime scene. Hallam was nevertheless sentenced on these testimonies.
In the years following Hallam’s incarceration, a new evidence has come to light, including statements from a number of witnesses who were present when Kassahun was killed, confirming Hallam’s original statement that he was not in the area that evening.
Due to government cutbacks, the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) only began looking at Hallam’s case about a year after the new evidence was made available. It is therefore likely to still take a considerable amount of time before the CCRC completes the investigation. Until then, Sam Hallam’s family, friends and supporters will continue to protest his innocence.
Show your support and send a birthday card to Sam Hallam:
Sam Hallam, A3535AD
HMP Bullingdon
PO Box 50
Bicester, Oxon
0X25 1PZ
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The Sam Hallam Campaign will have a presence at the Streetlevel Fair on Saturday 10 July in St John the Baptist Church Garden on Pitfield Street, Hoxton, and again at the Shoreditch Festival in Shoreditch Park on Saturday 17 July.
Campaigners will be selling tee-shirts, badges, CDs, posters, booklets, flyers, stickers and postcards to raise money and highlight the Hoxton One’s continuing plight.
More information:
www.samhallam.com