The Curious Case of The Kansas City Three L Todd Wood September 2, 2025

AMBAZONIA STATE ARMY (ASA) PARADE OCTOBER 1, 2024

The Biden administration weaponized the American justice system against its political enemies. It also used our justice system against enemies of Biden's corrupt business partners in foreign lands, with the courts becoming a “go to” tool of foreign influence peddling that Hunter Biden was so skilled at.

The prosecution of Claude Chi, Lah Nestor Langmi and Francis Chenyi -- three U.S. citizens born in Southern Cameroons, in Western District of Missouri U.S. Court is one such unfortunate case, wrote Lennox Hinds, a professor emeritus at Rutgers University in 2023 in The Miami Independent. The case was driven by Biden’s DOJ.

The “Kansas City Three,” as they have become known in both news stories about the case and opinion pieces, have languished in pre-trial detention since their indictment in late 2022. The prosecution has still not presented the defense with formal charges.

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The case is scheduled to go to trial on Dec 1 this year in Kansas City. But it was slated for hearings previously and adjourned instead. One of the wives of the Kansas City Three stated that the defendants have been placed under this pressure by design, to force them into a plea bargain rather than go to trial.

On November 18, 2022, the three Americans were indicted on a conspiracy to provide material support in violation of “18 U.S.C. § 2339A. See Doc 1.” The indictment alleges that the defendants illegally provided material support and resources to others to aid in carrying out a conspiracy to kill and kidnap persons in a foreign country and a conspiracy to use a “weapon of mass destruction” outside of the United States, writes the U.S. government in legal filings of the case in June of 2023.

Chi, Langmi and Chenyi allegedly raised funds for equipment, supplies and weapons used by local civilians to defend the Anglophone communities in Southern Cameroons, in northwest and southwest Cameroon, against attacks by the Cameroonian military and security forces in what the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum said in 2020 amounted to a genocide against the English-speaking communities. Since 2017, the Cameroon military campaign against civilians in Southern Cameroons has targeted to kill men, women, children, missionaries and journalists, while razing entire villages.

The violence against the communities in northwest and southwest Cameroon by government forces has resulted in approximately 60,000 killed; over three million people in need of humanitarian assistance; 700,000 internally displaced persons and 100,000 refugees in Nigeria. For a well-documented account of the atrocities by the Cameroon government, which the Kansas City Three raised funds to defend against, has been detailed here: www.ambazoniagenocidelibrary.com.

The defense fund was raised through online chat applications and payment platforms from individuals located in the United States and abroad. The funds were then transferred by the three defendants through intermediaries to support the communities being attacked by the Cameroon security forces.

Some argue the indictment was political.

When CDM reached out to the Justice Department on the case, a public affairs officer declined to comment on the ongoing matter. CDM also contacted the Western District of Missouri U.S. Court for comment.

We asked the Justice Department why the case has taken so long to go to trial, and if the Trump DOJ will treat the case differently than the Biden administration.

Since 2016, Paul Biya, president of Cameroon declared a senseless war on the people and civil society of Southern Cameroons, adds The Miami Independent.

The three accused have their parents, families and broader community facing a genocide against them in Cameroon. The three were trying to raise funds to support their helpless families that are being killed, raped and maimed daily by the Cameroon government’s soldiers with impunity. The Kansas City 3, Chi, Chenyi and Langmi, are indicted for participating in raising more than $350,000 to support community self-defense initiatives in Southern Cameroons against the brutal Cameroon military forces.

Nearly two years ago, three U.S. citizens were jailed for allegedly supporting Anglophone separatist militias who are battling for independence from the Francophone central government in Cameroon, writes National Journal.

For purposes of his motion in court, Francis Chenyi incorporated and adopted the arguments set forth in defendant Claude Chi’s appeal of Magistrate Judge Morris’s detention order, which (1) set forth the historical and political background for the conflict in Cameroon, and that (2) set forth why each defendant, including Chenyi, is entitled to a lawful combatant immunity affirmative defense under applicable international law, wrote a defense counsel in a motion to dismiss the case.

Sources tell CDM that prosecutors in the case are seeking a plea bargain and are threatening the defendants with life imprisonment if the Kansas City Three don’t take it. Lawyers for the defense are seeking release for time served.

The case against the Kansas City Three began during the Biden administration and according to sources was driven by Biden’s DOJ from Day One. Then, DOJ’s National Security Division took the lead, by all accounts.

Tibor Nagy, a retired foreign-service officer who served as Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs during the first Trump administration, said three days after President Trump won his second presidential term, on November 8, 2024, that if “Trump selects certain people whose names have come up for high level posts the Yaoundé regime [the Cameroon government] will get much more pressure over its mistreatment of its Anglophone population. [The] Cameroon Govt. has gotten a relatively free ride with Biden…”

There also seems to be a double standard at play here.

At the heart of this issue lies a glaring discrepancy: Why are U.S. citizens who send financial support to individuals in conflicts in Cameroon treated differently than those aiding present conflicts in Israel and Ukraine, and in the past, against the government of Cuba?

U.S. citizens have not been prosecuted for enlisting or joining the Ukrainian army and fighting in its war against Russia in violation of The Neutrality Act without risk of prosecution, wrote Lennox Hinds in Stars and Stripes.

Immigrants and diaspora from Ukraine, Israel, and others have sourced funds in the U.S. for defending their relatives back home in-country.

Where did the double standard against the Kansas City Three come from?

Why did the Biden White House make the case a political issue?

Back in 2022, did the Missouri federal court take its cues from Washington, D.C.?

CDM will continue following the case as it unfolds, as it fits our view of the world and our journalistic focus -- finding under-reported stories that have a big impact.