'Moorish Nationals' Seek Federal Trial In 1-95 Standoff Case

PROVIDENCE, RI — A group of Pawtucket-linked "Moorish Nationals" arrested on a Massachusetts highway over the July 4 weekend now say their state-level criminal cases should be heard in federal court "with consuls from the Morrocan/Moorish nation present."

In a set of rambling documents filed July 23 in Rhode Island District Court, ten members of Rise of the Moors claimed sovereign nation status, said their cases should be removed from the state courts in Massachusetts, claimed to be filing a personal injury lawsuit while appearing to make civil rights arguments, and demanded $70 million and a federal jury trial.

At the same time, the plaintiffs claimed that U.S. courts have no jurisdiction over their cases because of a 1786 "Treaty of Amity and Commerce between the Moroccan Empire and the Republic of the United States of America." The proper venue is consular courts, the plaintiffs argued.

The lawsuit named a Massachusetts judge, several members of the Massachusetts State Police, and media outlets including CBS News, NBCUniversal and Viacom.

It's the latest chapter in an unusual case that made national headlines.

According to Massachusetts State Police, ten men and a juvenile on July 3 were refueling a black cargo van with Maine plates alongside Interstate 95 in Wakefield when a trooper pulled up at around 1:30 a.m. The men claimed to be a militia traveling to Maine from Rhode Island for training. The men were dressed in tactical gear, heavily armed, and could not produce firearms licenses. The trooper called for backup, and an hours-long standoff closed the highway in both directions. The situation was resolved without injury. The men, now behind bars, were arraigned on a litany of firearms and conspiracy charges, and their cases are pending in Massachusetts.

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The plaintiffs in last week's federal lawsuit include group leader Jamhal Tavon Sanders Latimer, also known as Jamhal Talib Abdullah Bey. Bey, a former U.S. Marine, is a graduate of Tolman High School in Pawtucket.

Bey's arrest report showed his address as 255 Main Street in the city, but other court documents show him as a Providence resident. Court records for defendant Quinn Cumberlander list Pawtucket and Providence addresses. Bey and Cumberlander face state charges in Rhode Island in addition to the Massachusetts charges.

Other men arrested on July 3 were from New York, with one defendant from Detroit.

The Rise of the Moors had previously been operating out of 23 Acorn Street in Providence but expressed plans on their website to squat in a foreclosed Pawtucket apartment building.

The Moorish sovereign citizen movement "is a collection of independent organizations and lone individuals that emerged in the early 1990s as an offshoot of the antigovernment sovereign citizens movement, which believes that individual citizens hold sovereignty over, and are
independent of, the authority of federal and state governments," according to the Southern Poverty Law Center.