A woman described as one of the most influential people in the world — who serves as the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court in The Hague — lost her son to gun violence in St. Paul earlier this year.
The Ramsey County attorney’s office released Bensouda’s name last week, after the Pioneer Press requested it. Bensouda’s family had initially asked that his identity not be made public, according to the county attorney’s office.George Bensouda, 33, was fatally shot outside the St. Paul Saloon in the Dayton’s Bluff area on the night of Jan. 29. At the time of the killing, police took the unusual step of not publicly naming him.
The family said in a statement Friday that they “remain deeply shocked and saddened by the sudden and tragic demise of their loved one.”
Days after Bensouda was killed, prosecutors filed a second-degree murder charge against Kareem Karel Mitchell, also known as Kareem Ase.
A spokesman for the county attorney’s office said that because the case is pending they could not comment on whether Bensouda and Mitchell knew each other or on other aspects of the case.
The criminal complaint does not give a motive for the killing.
Surveillance video showed that a man came up to Bensouda and a friend outside the bar and “it appears that words were exchanged,” according to the complaint. Bensouda stumbled toward the man, his friend moved him back and then the man started firing a gun.
Most people who police talked to at the saloon at 1045 Hudson Road reported there were no disputes inside that night, but one man said he saw Bensouda arguing with someone by the pool table, according to the complaint. Another man said Bensouda had bought drinks for people, apparently including Mitchell.
SON OF ‘THE WOMAN WHO HUNTS TYRANTS’
Bensouda, who was a native of Gambia, attended the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire between 2001 and 2002 and then from 2004 to December 2007, graduating with a bachelor of business administration degree in management-entrepreneurship.
Bensouda’s father is a businessman and his mother is Fatou Bensouda. She worked as a prosecutor and a justice minister and later a lawyer at the Rwanda tribunal that prosecuted perpetrators of the 1990s genocide.
Fatou Bensouda went on to become deputy prosecutor at the International Criminal Court in The Hague, Netherlands, and then chief prosecutor in 2012. The court tries individuals for war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity.
A headline in The Guardian last year referred to Fatou Bensouda as “the woman who hunts tyrants” and the article called her as one of the most powerful African women in the world. Time magazine named Bensouda as one of the most influential people in the world in 2012.
George Bensouda’s family asked for privacy as they dealt “with their immense loss.”
“The investigation into this callous and unprovoked crime is continuing by the competent authorities,” Bensouda’s family said in the statement. “At this juncture, the family is assisting the authorities in any way they can to ensure the legal process takes its course and that the person responsible for this heinous crime faces justice as expediently as possible.”
COLLEGE GRADUATE WHO’D BEEN IN TROUBLE
Details of George Bensouda’s life, beyond his schooling at UW-Eau Claire and his criminal record, are hard to trace. He did not appear to have an online presence.
The Ramsey County medical examiner’s office said George Bensouda had an Eau Claire address; a funeral home listed him as a Mahtomedi resident.
When St. Paul police encountered Bensouda in June 2015, he had a Minneapolis address. In that case, a passerby who was an off-duty officer heard gunshots being fired, saw an apparent struggle in a Lincoln Navigator and a window of the vehicle shattering. No one was injured in the shooting, which police said occurred in Bensouda’s vehicle. A police report listed Bensouda as a suspect. He was not charged in that case.
In Wisconsin, Bensouda had been accused in a string of gun-related cases.
In November 2010, several people reported they were out drinking and went to Bensouda’s Eau Claire apartment, where they were playing video games, according to a transcript from a hearing in federal court.
Bensouda allegedly became angry when a man accidentally bumped his television and Bensouda began shooting at him, a prosecutor told the court. The man was not injured, and Bensouda was charged with attempted first-degree homicide in Wisconsin court, along with possessing a firearm with an obliterated serial number and possession of cocaine with intent to deliver in federal court.
Ballistics also linked Bensouda’s gun to a December 2009 incident of shots fired in which a vehicle was damaged, and an October 2007 shots fired in the area of Bensouda’s apartment, according to the federal court transcript.
The federal case was dismissed when Bensouda was charged in state court, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Wisconsin. He was found guilty of recklessly endangering safety after a no-contest plea, according to a court record.
LOST HIS LIFE ON WINTER NIGHT
The night Bensouda was fatally shot was a Sunday. He and a friend, Gregory Wilson, went to the St. Paul Saloon.
Wilson, who was then 30, told police that Bensouda saw someone he knew by the pool table and Bensouda’s “interactions with the other people were friendly and there did not seem to be any problems,” according to the criminal complaint.
Meanwhile, the man who told police he heard Bensouda arguing with someone near the pool table reported that the alleged shooter and a woman left the bar, and then Bensouda and Wilson left. The man heard Bensouda “say he was going to take care of it right now,” according to the complaint.
From the window, the bar patron saw a man walk up to Bensouda and Wilson and start shooting. After Bensouda fell, the man stood over him and shot him several times, the complaint said. Wilson was shot in the leg and survived. Bensouda, who was pronounced dead at the hospital, had been shot seven times.
Police identified Mitchell as the suspect, according to the complaint.
Chicago police arrested Mitchell in that city on Feb. 24. Mitchell is being held in the Ramsey County jail on $1 million bail. He intends to plead not guilty and go to trial, said Mitchell’s attorney Earl Gray, who otherwise declined comment.
Mitchell has eight previous felony convictions — five for drug cases and three for DWIs, according to the complaint.
By MARA H. GOTTFRIED | mgottfried@pioneerpress.com | Pioneer Press
Source: http://www.twincities.com/2017/07/14/fatou-bensouda-international-criminal-court-hague-son-shot-killed-st-paul-mn/
