Death row inmate allowed to appeal
A US judge has thrown out Mumia Abu-Jamal's death sentence, ruling that he is entitled to a new sentencing hearing.
The former journalist was sentenced to death for murdering a Philadelphia police officer in 1981.
The judge however refused Abu-Jamal's request for a new trial, upholding his 1982 conviction on first-degree murder charges.
Abu-Jamal is revered by a worldwide Free Mumia movement as a crusader against racial injustice.
But he is reviled by the policeman's supporters as an unrepentant cop-killer who deserves to die.
Abu-Jamal was convicted of shooting policeman Daniel Faulkner, 25, after the officer pulled over Abu-Jamal's brother at a traffic stop.
Celebrities, death-penalty opponents and foreign politicians have since rallied to Abu-Jamal's cause, calling him a political prisoner and saying he was railroaded by a racist justice system.
In a 1999 affidavit, a man named Arnold Beverly claimed he was hired by the mob to kill Faulkner because the officer had interfered with mob pay-offs to police.
