1960s militant moved to federal custody

A 1960s black militant sentenced to life in prison for killing a deputy in 2000 has been transferred to federal custody because his high-profile status presented "unique issues," Georgia corrections officials said.

State officials declined to specify why they transferred Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin, who gained fame when he was a Black Panthers leader known as H. Rap Brown.

Nothing specific triggered the move, corrections spokeswoman Yolanda Thompson said Thursday.

"We assess our inmate population daily, and we assess the needs of our inmates," Thompson said. "This is an ongoing case, involving the best interest of our overall population. And he's a very high-profile inmate."

Al-Amin, 63, was taken to the Federal Bureau of Prisons' transfer center in Oklahoma on Wednesday, said Felicia Ponce, a bureau spokeswoman. He remained there Friday.

Al-Amin is serving a life sentence without parole for the March 2000 shooting death of Fulton County Sheriff's Deputy Ricky Kinchen.

Kinchen, 38, was killed and his partner, Aldranon English, was wounded when they went to serve a warrant to Al-Amin. The warrant was for failing to appear in court to face charges of driving a stolen car and impersonating a police officer.

Al-Amin was captured in Alabama four days later. He was convicted in 2002.

His family and friends have claimed that state prison wardens mistreated Al-Amin. Two years ago, supporters protested outside the prison system headquarters, claiming that Al-Amin was being subjected to solitary confinement 23 hours a day and forced to submit to humiliating strip searches in front of female guards.

A state prison spokesman had said Al-Amin was under lockdown because of his security risk level, which is based on an inmate's criminal history and behavior in prison. The spokesman denied that Al-Amin would be subjected to strip searches in front of female guards.

Many still know Al-Amin as H. Rap Brown, the radical who served as a leader of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. In 1967, he famously said that violence was "as American as cherry pie."

Brown changed his name when he converted to the Dar-ul Islam movement in the 1970s while serving a five-year sentence for his role in a robbery that ended in a shootout with New York police.

He later emerged as a leader of one of the nation's largest black Muslim groups, the National Ummah. The movement, which has formed 36 mosques around the nation, has been credited with revitalizing poverty-stricken pockets such as Atlanta's West End, where Al-Amin owned a grocery store.