CLEVELAND, OH – When customers of the Aleoba.com online beauty and fashion store visit the website to purchase a bottle of Mwaka hair growth serum they won’t know the owner of the company is dead. It’s a problem with one-owner websites and online businesses. Owners can die between orders.
In Mwaka Ruth Azali’s case she was shot to death on May 26, 2021 by her husband during what his attorney claims was a gunfight between the couple. According to Omnisun Azali through attorney Jeffrey Saffold, his French speaking African immigrant wife shot first.
Omnisun Azali is the name Robert James Bailey Collier-Williams asked the Cuyahoga County Probate Court to assign him in 2004. The “Azali” surname appears to be associated with the Congo, Iran and India. On her Aleoba.com website Mwaka Ruth Azali promotes fashions from Africa and China.
Instead of calling Euclid police to report the alleged gunfight and his wife’s death, Azali called his mother and headed to her home. Omnisun Azali’s mother is Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas Judge Cassandra Colliers-Williams. His attorney’s former step-mother is Common Pleas Judge Shirley Strickland-Saffold.
Unlike most defendants facing murder charges, Azali comes from a family where he’s been given the legal advice to “shut up” and exercise his right to remain silent. He appears to be listening.
Saffold is speaking for him and his attorney wanted his client to be treated like law enforcement officers when they’re involved in shootings. Finish the investigation before a rush to judgment with a criminal charge. Euclid police and the city’s prosecuting attorney aren’t hearing him. Azali is a murderer in their eyes and there’s no other explanation for his “wife’s” death.
Azali is in jail on a $1 million bond for murder as a violation of Section 2903.02(A) of the Ohio Revised Code. At 10 percent he needs $100,000 in cash or assets to go free before his trial. If Azali has invested the $142,000 he was awarded by a North Carolina court in 2014 from Revolutionary Concepts, Inc. he may have the money from that investment and the sale of his book “Culture Shock: A veteran’s guide to adjustment.” The language of Ohio’s murder statute, in part, reads as follows:
(A) No person shall purposely cause the death of another or the unlawful termination of another’s pregnancy. (B) No person shall cause the death of another as a proximate result of the offender’s committing or attempting to commit an offense of violence that is a felony of the first or second degree and that is not a violation of section 2903.03 or 2903.04 of the Revised Code. (C) Division (B) of this section does not apply to an offense that becomes a felony of the first or second degree only if the offender previously has been convicted of that offense or another specified offense. (D) Whoever violates this section is guilty of murder, and shall be punished as provided in section 2929.02 of the Revised Code.
The “murder” charge seems inconsistent with the limited information Judge Collier-Williams provided to a Euclid 911 dispatcher was well as what’s been shared in published reports about Saffold’s claim that the shooting was in self-defense. According to Saffold the killing was not “purposeful” nor was Azali committing or attempting to commit the offense of violence. Every argument a couple experiences doesn’t lead to a shoot out at the OK Corral.
Section 2901.05(A) of the Ohio Revised Code establishes that every person accused of an offense is “presumed innocent,” but that’s not the criminal justice paradigm driving the conduct of police, prosecutors and judges in Cuyahoga County and the rest of Ohio.
A) Every person accused of an offense is presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, and the burden of proof for all elements of the offense is upon the prosecution. The burden of going forward with the evidence of an affirmative defense, and the burden of proof, by a preponderance of the evidence, for an affirmative defense other than self-defense, defense of another, or defense of the accused’s residence as described in division (B)(1) of this section, is upon the accused.
(B)(1) A person is allowed to act in self-defense, defense of another, or defense of that person’s residence. If, at the trial of a person who is accused of an offense that involved the person’s use of force against another, there is evidence presented that tends to support that the accused person used the force in self-defense, defense of another, or defense of that person’s residence, the prosecution must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the accused person did not use the force in self-defense, defense of another, or defense of that person’s residence, as the case may be.
In interviews on local media Saffold is saying his client is innocent of “murder” as it pertains to Mwaka Ruth. She shot at him and he shot back.
Azali’s bullets found their way to behind Mwaka Ruth’s right ear, right cheek and on the right side of the top of her head. All three headshots.
A loaded gun lay next to Azali’s immigrant wife. The challenge for Cuyahoga County Prosecuting Attorney Michael O’Malley will be in proving beyond a reasonable doubt that Azali was not in fear of his life being taken by his alleged gun-wielding wife.
Azali was supposed to have been picking up the son he had with Mwaka Ruth to take him to a doctor’s appointment; so there may be a witness with knowledge of facts Euclid police and the city’s prosecuting attorney don’t know. Like convicted ex-Court of Common Pleas Judge Lance Mason’s two daughters, Judge Colliers-Williams grandson is scarred for life over the tragedy.
Published reports are describing the Azali’s as “man and wife.” There are no “Cuyahoga County” probate or domestic relations records which affirm either a marriage or a divorce. Probate records show only Omnisun Azali’s 2004 name change and three updates of his “last will and testament.” The last “will” update occurred in 2015. The lack of local marriage records may mean the couple was married in another state.
Judge Collier-Williams got a first hand opportunity to see how Euclid police operating outside the dictates of Section 109.81 of the Ohio Revised Code treat American Negroes. According to information obtained during Azali’s arraignment in Euclid Municipal Court, his mother called 911 as she was driving Omnisun or “Robert” back to the 144 E. 265th Street home where Mwaka Ruth’s lifeless body laid partially slumped on a sofa.
Allegedly, dispatchers told Judge Collier-Williams not to proceed but to wait for Euclid police to arrive. She continued on to 144 E. 265th Street, with cops following, hoping to turn him in to the law enforcement officers at the crime scene.
When she arrived at the Azali home Euclid cops drew their weapons on her and Omnisun; and then restrained and separated the two in different public safety vehicles. Neither presented a threat to the Euclid cops that required them to escalate the surrender into a potentially deadly encounter. Police found weapons inside the Azali home. Not on Mwaka Ruth’s husband.
Chasing Justice founder Mariah Crenshaw has evidence that Euclid cops are discharging law enforcement duties with Ohio Peace Officer Training Academy credentials that are invalid because of numerous “process” flaws in how they were obtained. She’s filed a criminal complaint using R.C. 2935.09 and 2935.10 against Euclid cop Matthew Rhodes for gunning down Luke Stewart.
Crenshaw said Amiott was discharging law enforcement duties when R.C. 109:2-1-12 of the Ohio Administrative Code instructs police, annually, to cease discharging the duties of law enforcement officers and wearing weapons if the “appointing authority” has not sought and received a pre-approved curriculum for them to receive 24 hours of required training. Online classes don’t count.
The appointing authority is not the “chief of police” though in Ohio police chiefs having been signing off on training as if they were. The appointing authority is each municipal corporations Civil Service Commission and the mayor in that official’s capacity as a city’s chief law enforcement officer.
Pursuant to Section 737.06 of the Ohio Revised Code the chief of police’s authority is to “station and transfer” police officers under the rules of the safety director as approved by the mayor. Police chiefs are given no authority to create departmental rules and regulations. They also have no contract signing authority nor any authority to ask the Bureau of Criminal Investigations (BCI) for homicide investigative assistance.
Pursuant to Section 313.17 of the Ohio Revised Code. the coroner or in Cuyahoga County the medical examiner has the statutory duty to investigate homicides. Police can’t even touch a body without the coroner’s permission. Section 313.17 of the Ohio Revised Code gives coroners “unique” authority given no other class of state, county or municipal law enforcement officer to obtain “cause of death” information from anyone.
The statute was used by the late Coroner Samuel Gerber in 1954 during a public inquest that involved the late Dr. Samuel Shephard for murdering his wife Marilyn. The high standards Gerber, a medical doctor and attorney, established for the office were degraded under former County Coroner Dr. Elizabeth Balraj. She simply relied on information supplied to her by police without conducting investigations of her own. Throughout her time in elected office Balraj never subpoeaned any witnesses to learn how violent deaths occurred.
The coroner or deputy coroner may issue subpoenas for such witnesses as are necessary, administer to such witnesses the usual oath, and proceed to inquire how the deceased came to his death, whether by violence to self or from any other persons, by whom, whether as principals or accessories before or after the fact, and all circumstances relating thereto. The testimony of such witnesses shall be reduced to writing and subscribed to by them, and with the findings and recognizances mentioned in this section, shall be kept on file in the coroner’s office, unless the county fails to provide such an office, in which event all such records, findings and recognizances shall be kept on file in the office of the clerk of the court of common pleas. The coroner may cause such witnesses to enter into recognizance, in such sum as is proper, for their appearance to give testimony concerning the matter. He may require any such witnesses to give security for their attendance, and, if any of them fails to comply with his requirements he shall commit such person to the county jail until discharged by due course of law. In case of the failure of any person to comply with such subpoena, or on the refusal of a witness to testify to any matter regarding which he may lawfully be interrogated, the probate judge, or a judge of the court of common pleas, on application of the coroner, shall compel obedience to such subpoena by attachment proceedings as for contempt. A report shall be made from the personal observation by the coroner or his deputy of the corpse, from the statements of relatives or other persons having any knowledge of the facts, and from such other sources of information as are available, or from the autopsy.
Omnisun Azali is a U.S. Army and Iraq war veteran at 35. Published reports are alleging he was a “sniper.” An internet search for the origins of his wife produces several “Mwaka Ruth’s” with different surnames associated with the Republic of the Congo.
The Congo has been involved in two back to back civil wars since 1996 that have still not “totally” ended. By 2008 the estimated number of war casualties was near 6 million. Among the “soldiers” in Joseph Kony’s Lord’s Resistance Army killing machine of militia were women and children. Mwaka Ruth was 37 at the time of her death.
Immigrants to the United States of America are required to answer questions about their involvement in militias on their immigration applications. Americans have come to learn that most lie. Some claiming to be “refugees” are war criminals fleeing the crimes they committed in their home nations.
Nine African nations were involved in trying to end the brutal civil war that spread into Uganda. Americans will remember the Rwandan massacre of 1996 and the more than 500,000 Hutu’s slaughtered by Tutsi’s. Actor Don Cheadle’s role in “Hotel Rwanda” depicts the brutality of the “African on African” conflict.
In developed nations like the United States of America soldiers returning from war have an infrastructure in place to aid in their healing from the atrocities they saw. There are no such services for “rebels” in foreign militias. The woman in the video below is another “Ruth Azali” from the Congo.
It is conceivable that “if” Mwaka Ruth’s foreign upbringing caused her to see and experience terrors foreign to Americans the Azali household might have been headed by two individuals with varying levels of treated and untreated post traumatic stress syndrome. If Omnisun’s claims are true then he’s not the first man in Cleveland a wife or girlfriend tried to kill.
In February 2015, William D. Williams was shot to death by his ex-wife, Dana Johnson, in their Glenville home. Williams is Cleveland police chief Calvin Williams’ late younger brother.
In East Cleveland ex-mayor Saratha Goggins stabbed O’Neal Price to death after he tried to end the relationship with the married woman. Like Azali, Goggins claimed she killed Price in “self defense.”
Azali has a preliminary hearing set for June 4, 2021. It will be interesting to see how O’Malley proves beyond a reasonable doubt that Azali was not in fear of his life and acting in self-defense when he shot more accurately at his wife than she was allegedly shooting at him in their home.
