Biography
Iya Fulani Sunni-Ali, born Cynthia Boston in New Rochelle, New York in 1948, was a singer, educator, and Minister of Information of the Provisional Government of the Republic of New Afrika. She took the citizens oath of the PGRNA under her father, Alajo Adegbalola, who served as the PGRNAs Minister of Defense in 1970 and First Vice-President from 1971 to 1972. From the late 1960s she sang professionally and toured the world for four years with the South African singer Miriam Makeba; she also worked in security for Stokely Carmichael during the same period.
She was arrested on October 27, 1981 in the investigation following the Brinks robbery. The November 1985 New York State chronology records her release on November 5, 1981 after her New Orleans alibi was established, followed by a separate December 7, 1981 jailing for contempt after she refused to cooperate with the federal grand jury. Her later release is recorded as October 1983, but the existing records disagree on the exact day and do not establish a reliable total actually served. She remained an organizer and died July 17, 2016.
Contemporary grand-jury investigation account
The newsletter explicitly dates the Mississippi raid and arrests of Fulani Sunni-Ali, identified as Cynthia Boston, and Jerry Gaines to October 27, 1981. This agrees with the existing biography and corrects the case’s October 26 arrest field only. The article does not establish the starting day of her later civil-contempt confinement, actual release, or uninterrupted custody between the raid and that later phase. The old October 26 admission and 722-day stored interval are not independently validated by this source and remain separate research questions; no endpoint or counter is recalculated here.
The May–June 1982 issue is a movement-support newsletter containing reporting, editorial commentary and a separately attributed first-person statement. Allegations of mistreatment or investigative misconduct are attributed to that source rather than presented as new court findings. Group trial lengths, subpoena dates, warrant dates and threatened arrests do not supply individual physical custody endpoints.
The Coming of the Troops, volume 1 issue 1, May–June 1982, original page 1.
The December 1983 New Afrikan reports Fulani’s latest grand-jury contempt remand in May and her physical release on October 19, 1983. It describes repeated releases and remands, rather than uninterrupted confinement from her initial 1981 arrest.
The bulletin describes the Mississippi farmhouse raid after October 20, handcuffing with children, removal to New York, Brinks-conspiracy accusations and actual release after an alibi and public defense campaign. It also reports a remaining grand-jury subpoena. Its claim that officials already knew her innocence is attributed. The scan ends this article with a continuation to an absent printed page13; that missing continuation cannot establish a further detention or endpoint.
Tip of the Iceberg, December 1981 (surviving twelve-page scan), PDF page 11.
Under her name Cynthia Boston, the report records the October 27, 1981 Mississippi arrest, November 5 release after her New Orleans alibi was established, and separate December 7, 1981 contempt jailing. These are two episodes separated by release, not an uninterrupted custody interval. The report characterizes the original identification as incorrect; it supplies no final endpoint for the later contempt custody.
Report of the New York State Policy Study Group on Terrorism, November 1985, PDF page 61.
