Minneapolis, MN — Despite his pleas of innocence, Mahdi Ali was 15 when he was arrested and subsequently convicted and sentenced to life in prison for a 2010 triple murder in Minneapolis. Fifteen years later, a new grassroots campaign called The Coalition to Free Mahdi Ali has launched to demand justice and freedom for Ali. The Minneapolis teacher’s union is also calling for Ali’s exoneration and release along with the Target boycott organizers, and a former Minneapolis City Council member has called for a new trial.

Last year, Unicorn Riot published an independent investigation into Ali’s case, finding that his conviction was largely based on unreliable testimonies from people implicated in the crimes, one of whom later recanted claims of Mahdi’s involvement, saying, “I was protecting someone else. And he (Mahdi) ended up taking the fall for something he didn’t end up doing.”

Mahdi Ali is one of several thousand people languishing in Minnesota prisons who claim they’ve been wrongfully convicted over the last two decades. According to Minnesota’s Conviction Review Unit (CRU), at least two hundred of those claims have been found to have evidence backing up their innocence.

Having his appeals denied by the courts over the years, Ali recently submitted an application to the localized version of the CRU, the newly-created Hennepin County Attorney’s Office Conviction Integrity Unit (CIU), in hopes of having his case reinvestigated to clear his name and free him from his life sentence.

More on Mahdi Ali’s story: Target, ‘Junk Science’ and Unreliable Testimonies: The Contentious Conviction of 15-Year-Old Mahdi Ali [June 2024]

MFT Passes Resolution to Support Mahdi Ali

Pushing for his freedom from the outside, nearly 50 rank and file members of the Minneapolis Federation of Teachers Local 59 (MFT 59) voted for a resolution formally supporting Ali’s exoneration and immediate release from prison. The vote was held on April 23 and received 97% approval. Ali is a former Minneapolis Public School student and was attending South High School before being imprisoned.

“[B]e it resolved that MFT 59 holds the position that Mahdi Ali is innocent of the crimes he was convicted of in 2011; Be it further resolved that: MFT 59 calls on Governor Tim Walz, Attorney General Keith Ellison and Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty to prioritize reviewing Ali’s case and grant him an immediate exoneration and release him from prison.”

Excerpt from MFT 59 Member Resolution in Support of Exoneration and Release of Mahdi Ali

The Campaign Kickoff

The union’s support came on the heels of The Coalition to Free Mahdi Ali’s campaign and zine launch, with a multi-hour program held at the MFT 59 building on April 19, 2025. The kickoff event featured a run-down of Ali’s case and a panel discussion that included Mahdi Ali calling in from Rush City prison. Among the two dozen people in attendance was Ali’s mother. 

One of the hosts of the campaign kickoff was Marjaan ‘MJ’ Sirdar, key author of the MFT resolution and a teacher at South High School where Mahdi Ali attended. Sirdar and Nick Nelson, also a teacher at South High, created a zine about Ali’s case titled “Target of Injustice.” Sirdar started the program by breaking down six issues with Ali’s case, as listed in the zine, including: 

• How the state’s case relied on unreliable witnesses who had incentives to blame Ali for the crimes, including the two original suspects who were first cousins and two police informants; 
• Overwhelming evidence pointing to another killer, including the fact that the surveillance video showed the killer wearing another teens coat during the murders; 
• Incredulous evidence: blood evidence the state used to convict Ali was contaminated with the DNA of a state investigator and two other people, and the height of the killer did not match the height of Ali who was nearly a half foot shorter than the accomplice in the crimes and his cousin, who Sirdar argues is the likely killer;
• Target Corporation’s improper role in convicting Ali with two Target forensics analysts testifying against the teen; 
• Major issues with the Minneapolis Police investigation including their failure to ask the original suspected killer if he committed the killings; and lastly
• The problematic history of the county attorney’s office under Mike Freeman and Amy Klobuchar.

He pointed out that during the reign of Mike Freeman and Amy Klobuchar as the Hennepin County Attorneys collectively from 1991-2019, they “oversaw a nearly-600% increase in Black boys and men sent to Minnesota state prisons,” and that Klobuchar’s office was, in-part, funded by Target Corporation who required convictions in exchange for funding. Klobuchar said as much herself in a 2006 Washington Post article. 

“There were huge strings attached…they don’t just give us money — they demand accountability. In the past, the DA’s office tracked input numbers [how many criminals were charged], though once we were working with Target, we were required to track output numbers, or how many convictions we get in a year.”

Amy Klobuchar, 2006

Sirdar said the retail giant had improper relationships considering it funded the police and the prosecutor’s office, arguing that the two forensics analysts from Target should have never been allowed to testify against Ali since it funded that same office based on convictions. “Not truth, not justice, not public safety, but convictions.” 

Furthermore, Sirdar pointed out how Judge Peter Cahill, who presided over Ali’s trial, formerly worked for the Target-funded Hennepin County Attorney’s Office for seven years as the number two directly under Klobuchar. 

Sirdar, also a freelance journalist who released the investigative report, How Target Funded a ‘Tough On Crime’ Prosecutor’s Office, Driving Black Youth Incarceration in Minneapolis, believes Mahdi was framed by the very same authorities charged with protecting our children. “This goes beyond sloppy police work,” he said. 

Ali’s Emotional Reunion With Former Teacher

Mahdi Ali called into the discussion from prison several times — inmates have a 15-minute time limit on phone calls from prison. Ali spent his first few minutes thanking everyone, especially Ms. Brenda Johnson, his former teacher at Stadium View, the school inside the juvenile detention center where he was first incarcerated after the murders. He had many audience members in tears as he asked the crowd of two dozen to give a round of applause for Ms. Johnson’s consistent, loving work with youth locked up. Ali said if it wasn’t for her, he likely wouldn’t have gotten his GED while behind bars.

The discussion was broadly about youth incarceration, inequalities in Minneapolis policing and education, and Ali’s case. The panel included Marvina Haynes, founder of MN Wrongfully Convicted Judicial Reform, who is currently running for Minneapolis City Council’s Ward 4. She is the sister of Marvin Haynes, who was recently exonerated and freed from his life sentence after being wrongfully convicted of murder in 2005 by Klobuchar’s office. [See Unicorn Riot’s four-part investigative series on Haynes’ case and a 33-minute film in which Marvina is featured — released 9 months before his exoneration.]

Ali spoke about the importance of youth staying in school. He took it further than the slogan, saying youth should look at school as a different construct than just ‘school,’ rather it’s a place to find shelter, eat food, socialize, get safety and achieve an education. He said if he would’ve gone to school on the day of the murders that he was wrongfully convicted for, he wouldn’t have been convicted because he would have never been seen with the co-defendant in the case and his cousin.

“I wish I would’ve went to school that day … had I went to school that day, I wouldn’t have been seen with those kids that day … if there’s any kids in the crowd today, my advice to you is to stay in school.”

Mahdi Ali

With the hopes of exoneration and release, Ali said he’s destined to continue to be a mentor to youth and put back into his community. For several years he has been mentoring other young men in prison.

Ali also spoke about Target’s role in funding Minneapolis police, Hennepin County prosecutors and an expert witness in his case all at the same time.

Target Boycott Organizers Join Call to Free Mahdi

Calling for a lawsuit against the corporation for Target’s role in Ali’s case and connecting it to the ongoing Target boycott was Monique Cullars-Doty, co-founder of Black Lives Matter Minnesota and the aunt of Marcus Golden, who was killed by Saint Paul Police in 2015. 

Cullars-Doty, along with founder of the Racial Justice Network, Nekima Levy-Armstrong, and Jaylani Hussein, executive director of CAIR MN, kicked off a national Target boycott on January 30 after the retailer announced it was ending its program that promoted diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI). The boycott has had significant negative effects on Target.

The leaders of the protest are now standing behind Ali’s innocence and calling for accountability of the corporate giant for the role it played in the teens wrongful conviction.

Former City Council Member Calls for New Trial

The 2010 incident in which Ali was convicted for — a robbery turned into a triple murder at Seward Market — was a very high profile case in Minneapolis. All the victims were East African, one of the largest demographic groups in the neighborhood and many sought justice and accountability. Ali became “the perfect scapegoat” as he previously stated.

Cam Gordon, the former Minneapolis City Council member for Ward 2 during the time of the murders, has called for a new trial in the case. Gordon submitted a statement to the Coalition saying it may be painful to “open up these wounds again” but “a new trial is needed.”

“Serious, legitimate questions are being raised about the investigation. In 2021, the accomplice in the crimes and the state’s key witness said he lied to the police and Mahdi is really innocent. As painful as it might be to open these wounds again, I believe that a new trial is needed. Our local, county, and state criminal justice officials need to give it their most serious and careful consideration.”

Cam Gordon, former Minneapolis City Council member in a statement to the Coalition to Free Mahdi Ali

Gordon is the co-founder of the Green Party of Minnesota and was a council member for 16 years before being succeeded by Robin Wonsley. You can read Gordon’s full statement here.

Nearly 100 people have signed a Change.org petition supporting Ali’s exoneration.

Watch the Zoom recording of the kickoff event below (video provided by the coalition).

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For more, see an interview with UR contributor MJ Sirdar breaking down Ali’s case and a summary of the 27 issues found in the Minneapolis Police’s investigation into Ali.

Interview: Breaking Down the Mahdi Ali Case

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Originally published with Unicorn Riot on May 12, 2025.