Philadelphia sues Paris for honouring a US murderer

my friends in paris can't believe the city named a street after a criminal who sits in a u.s. prison, and also gave him honorary citizenship. they dont want to accept that their mayor intervenes in an internal affair of the u.s. justice and are deeply ashamed by that decision.

here are some extracts from afp, 11 november 2006:

City authorities in Philadelphia are suing their counterparts in Paris and its suburb of Saint Denis for honouring a US prisoner on death row for the murder of a policeman. Gilbert Collard, representing the US city, said complaints alleging "apology for crime" had been officially lodged with prosecutors in the French capital and the adjoining region of Seine-Saint-Denis. In October 2003 Paris awarded Mumia Abu Jamal honorary citizenship at a ceremony, in a symbolic gesture against the death penalty. This honor was only the second in the city. Acording to the mayor Delanoe, the only other honoree was the Spanish painter Pablo Picasso in 1971. In April this year Saint Denis named a street after Jamal, 52, formerly known as Wesley Cook, a member of the Black Panther movement, who was sentenced to death in 1982 for the murder of policeman Daniel Faulkner in Philadelphia. Collard said the aim of the lawsuit was
not to damage any campaign against the death penalty, which he himself opposed,
but the US city considered the honours bestowed on Abu Jamal abnormal.