Categotry Archives: Criminals

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Canaan Banana

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Categories: Criminals, Politicians, Religious Leaders

Canaan Sodindo Banana, the first black president of Zimbabwe, died from cancer. He was 67.

The son of a Malawian migrant worker and a Zimbabwean woman, Banana earned a diploma in theology from Epworth Theological College. Ordained in 1962, he became a radical priest who published his own version of the Lord’s Prayer and encouraged Africans to resist white supremacy.

Banana joined the fight to oust the country’s white-only regime, and in 1975, was imprisoned for his political activities. When the country gained its independence in 1979, Banana was released and named Zimbabwe’s first black president. He served as a figurehead leader from 1980 to 1987.

Upon retiring from public office, Banana became a diplomat for the Organization of African Unity and the head of the religious department at the University of Zimbabwe. He spent a decade in relative quiet until a gay sex scandal caused him to flee the country and hide from authorities in South Africa.

After President Nelson Mandela persuaded him to return home, Banana was arrested, tried and convicted of 11 counts of sodomy, attempted sodomy and other “unnatural acts” with the men who staffed the State House during his presidential tenure. He was sentenced to 10 years incarceration, but only spent six months in an open prison; the rest of his sentence was suspended.

The scandal cost Banana his university post, his religious ordination and his popularity. Until his death, he continued to deny being gay or a rapist, declaring the charges were “a mortuary of pathological lies and a malicious vendetta of vilification and character assassination.”

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Stanley Fafara

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Categories: Actors, Criminals

Stanley Fafara, a child actor on the TV show, ”Leave It to Beaver,” died on Sept. 20 from complications of hernia surgery. He was 54.

When he was four years old, Fafara’s mother got him an agent who placed him in vitamin and milk commercials. After appearing in an episode of “The Adventures of Rin Tin Tin,” Fafara and his brother Tiger answered an open casting call for “Leave It to Beaver.” They were both hired. From 1957 to 1969, Fafara played Hubert “Whitey” Whitney, and Tiger played the character, “Tooey.”

After the show ended, Fafara attended North Hollywood High School, where he developed a drug and alcohol habit. He played music in Hollywood clubs and befriended members of the rock band, Paul Revere and the Raiders.

Drug addiction was eventually Fafara’s downfall. In the 1980s, he was arrested and jailed for breaking into pharmacies. When he was released, he worked several odd jobs and then became a drug dealer to support his habit. Fafara finally got clean at a detox center in 1995 then spent the rest of his life in a Portland apartment, where he survived on Social Security checks.

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John Geoghan

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Categories: Criminals

John Geoghan, a defrocked priest who unleashed the latest sex abuse scandal in the Catholic Church, was murdered in prison on Aug. 23. He was 68.
Although an autopsy is scheduled for Monday, it appears Geoghan was strangled in the Souza-Baranowski Correction Center by fellow inmate Joseph L. Druce. A convicted murderer and neo-Nazi, Druce is already serving a life sentence and will face murder charges in Geoghan’s death.
More than 130 people claimed Geoghan sexually abused them as children when he served as a Boston priest. In 2002, he was convicted of indecent assault and battery for fondling a 10-year-old boy at a swimming pool.
Geoghan was ordained in 1962. He served the Catholic Church for 30 years, during which time he was repeatedly reassigned to new parishes when allegations of sexual abuse were made. Although the archdiocese settled with many of Geoghan’s victims for $10 million, he still faced more criminal trials and 86 lawsuits.

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Idi Amin

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Categories: Criminals, Military, Politicians

iamin.jpgIdi Amin Dada Oumee, the former Ugandan dictator responsible for the deaths of at least 100,000 people, died on Aug. 16 of kidney failure. He was either 78 or 80.
Amin was born to a peasant father and a self-proclaimed sorceress of the Lugbara tribe. He dropped out of school and joined the Kings African Rifles of the British colonial army. In 1951, Amin also started boxing. At 6-foot-4 and 240 pounds, Amin served as Uganda’s heavyweight boxing champion for nine years.
In 1966, President Milton Obote appointed Amin to be the military’s chief of staff. Five years later, Amin overthrew Obote and declared himself president for life. Under Amin’s rule, an army of 15,000 men was formed and told to rape and pillage — in order to keep the peace. He also deported the country’s entire Asian population.
As Uganda plunged into economic chaos, Amin ordered the deaths of anyone who opposed him. He described himself as “a pure son of Africa,” and fed his enemies to crocodiles. Obote described him as “the greatest brute an African mother has ever brought to life.” Human rights groups estimate that between 100,000 and 500,000 people were killed during Amin’s eight-year reign.
After surviving 22 assassination attempts, Amin decided to invade Tanzania. In 1979, Tanzanian troops responded by seizing control of the Ugandan capital. Amin was removed from power and forced into exile. He fled to Libya, Iraq, then Saudi Arabia, where he lived comfortably until his death.
• Timeline of Amin’s Life

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Foday Sankoh

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Categories: Criminals, Military

fsankoh.jpgFoday Saybana Sankoh, the rebel leader who instigated a decade of civil war in Sierra Leone, died on July 29 from natural causes. He was 65.
Sankoh joined the British colonial army in 1956, and reached the rank of corporal. In 1971, he was dismissed for taking part in an attempted coup against Sierra Leone president Siaka Stevens. Sankoh served seven years in prison for his part in the insurgence, then went to Libya to train in the guerrilla camps with a group of exiles.
There Sankoh formed an alliance with Charles Taylor, a rebel leader who later seized control of Liberia. With Taylor’s backing, Sankoh returned to Sierra Leone and created an army known as the Revolutionary United Front. In 1991, Sankoh claimed ownership over the country’s diamond mines, and ordered the RUF to start a civil war. He offered his soldiers diamonds as payment for hacking off the limbs of civilians with machetes and raping tens of thousands of girls and women. Over the next decade, 50,000 people would be killed in the conflict.
In 2000, Sankoh was captured outside his Freetown home by pro-government troops, and the RUF was disbanded. During his appearance at the United Nations-backed war tribunal in March, Sankoh called himself a “living god.” He was charged with 17 counts of murder, rape, sexual slavery and extermination.

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