Celebrating 41 Years! Issue 19 Volume 42
FRIDAY May 9, 2014 FREE!
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That girl from Once :
Section 2
Pa g e 1
An interview with Dani de Waal
Seattle Gay News SEATTLE’S LGBT NEWS & ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY
Masmari enters guilty plea in Federal Court for Neighbours Nightclub arson courtesy of
Neighbours Nightclub
by Shaun Knittel SGN Associate Editor Musab Mohamed Masmari, 30, pleaded guilty to a federal arson charge on May 2. More than 750 people were at Neighbours Nightclub on New Year’s Eve, December 31, 2013, when Masmari entered the club just before midnight with a canister of gasoline, doused a stairwell with it, and then lit the stairwell on fire. Before leaving the club, Masmari set the red plastic gasoline can at the top of the stairs, creating the potential for an explosion had the fire actually reached it. Luckily, due to the fast actions of the nightclub staff and two off duty military personnel that had been drinking at the club, the fire was extinguished and Masmari’s plan to burn people alive was foiled. It is no secret that I was closely involved with this case since the very moment Masmari set fire to the nightclub. My husband and I were at Neighbours celebrating the
New Year’s Eve holiday and were a mere 20 feet or so away when the flames began to climb the steps leading to the upstairs mezzanine. Armed with a video camera, I instantly began to film the scene as it unfolded. Part of that footage includes the moment when a bartender, member of Neighbours security team and I found the container of gasoline at the top of the stairs – minutes after the fire had been extinguished. Jonathan Horton, a longtime Neighbours bartender, grabbed the two gentlemen that had put the fire out and directed me to them, allowing me to film their testimony about the event that had unfolded that night. That footage, along with other footage I shot that night, has all been turned over to investigators and, perhaps more widely known, to the media. A lot has been said about my decision to share the security footage that shows Masmari inside the see ARSON page 7
SGN EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW: Brunei fallout: Unions, U.S. Senator Tammy Baldwin celebrities, Gay wisn.com
rights groups boycott Beverly Hills Hotel
abc news
U.S. Senator Tammy Baldwin
by Mike Andrew SGN Staff Writer “I enjoy the Senate,” U.S. Senator Tammy Baldwin told SGN by phone from her DC office. “I’m back in the majority, and that means I’m able to help set the agenda.” Baldwin, the Senate’s only open Lesbian, has represented Wisconsin there for almost a year and a half. Before that, she served in the House from 1999 through 2013,
only four of those years with a Democratic majority. “[The Senate] is smaller, so you get to know your colleagues,” she added, “and you can look for common ground and persuade people to move.” Among the colleagues Baldwin has gotten to know well is Washington state’s Patty Murray. The two have worked together on budget issues and are now co-authors of the Tyler Clementi Higher Edu-
cation Anti-Harassment Act. “Senator Murray led the DSCC [Democratic Senate Campaign Committee] in 2012 [when Baldwin won her Senate seat, defeating popular former Wisconsin Governor Tommy Thompson]. She encouraged me to run and she kept tabs on my campaign,” Baldwin recalls. “When I arrived in the Senate I sought a seat on the Budget Committee, where Patty is the Chair
Brunei Sultan Hassnal Bolkiah
by Mike Andrew SGN Staff Writer
Imposing sharia law on his small Southeast Asian country has already cost the Sultan of Brunei $1.5 million, and is likely to cost him much more as a world-wide boycott of his luxury hotels grows. Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah, resee baldwin page 16 portedly worth $20 billion includ-
ing investments in posh hotels in the U.S. and Great Britain, introduced sharia on May 1. Among the penalties is death by stoning for Gay people and for women who have sex outside of marriage. Men will be allowed to take four wives and married women will be legally obligated to have see Brunei page 17