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The founder of a Muslim-oriented New York television station has been convicted of beheading his wife in 2009. Muzzammil 'Mo' Hassan, 46, never denied that he killed Aasiyah Hassan, 37 inside the suburban Buffalo station the couple established to promote cultural understanding. A jury on Monday rejected his claim he was the victim of spousal abuse. Hassan acted as his own lawyer during the trial in Buffalo. The Pakistan-born Hassan has been in custody since Feb. 12, 2009, when he walked into the Orchard Park police station and told officers his wife was dead. Her decapitated body was found at...

Legal experts following one of the most riveting murder trials in Buffalo history express uniform disapproval of Hassan's attempt to serve as his own lawyer and showing contempt for his trial by stalking out of court. Hassan, also known as "Mo," is charged with stabbing and beheading his wife, Aasiya, on Feb. 12, 2009, in the headquarters of their Bridges television station in Orchard Park. So far, Sedita said, prosecutors have received notice only that Hassan plans to pursue a "battered spouse" justification defense, essentially stating that as a long-abused husband, he feared for his life and the only way...

BUFFALO, N.Y. — A New York judge has warned the founder of a Muslim-oriented television station to retain a lawyer so he won't have to defend himself during an upcoming trial on charges he beheaded his wife. Muzzammil Hassan ...has parted ways with three previous lawyers. Hassan's pursuing a battered spouse defense.

BUFFALO, N.Y., Sept. 4 (UPI) -- Attorneys for a television executive charged with stabbing and beheading his wife can introduce evidence of "battered spouse syndrome," a New York judge ruled. Prosecutors in the case against Muzzammil Hassan said the decision by Erie County Judge Thomas P. Franczyk would force them to ask for a delay in the trial in the February 2009 killing of Aasiya Zubair Hassan, The Buffalo News reported Saturday. Muzzammil Hassan has been in custody since the body of his wife was found in the studio of Bridges TV, the Muslim-oriented cable station the couple had co-founded...

BUFFALO, NY-An Erie County Court judge reserved decision Friday on whether an Orchard Park man charged with beheading his wife, can use battered spouse syndrome to defend himself. Muzzammil Hassan is accused of murdering his wife Aasiya inside the Orchard Park studio of Bridges TV, which he founded, back in Februrary 2009. Erie County District Attorney Frank Sedita was in court himself Friday morning to speak on behalf of the prosecution and question why it's taken 18 months for the defense to finally make this request. Sedita added that allowing the defense to introduce an expert to confirm Hassan is...

Beheaded woman left statement detailing years of torment, tragedy. When Aasiya Zubair Hassan was finally ready to leave her husband, she prepared herself. She gathered copies of her police reports, photos of her beaten face, images of her ransacked house, scripts her husband made her memorize. Then she painstakingly chronicled her years of torment in a 21-page court statement that painted her husband as not just a batterer, but a cruel, manipulative monster. She detailed how he deprived her of sleep to "improve her personality," made her sign memos authorizing him to punish her if she talked with the police...

BUFFALO, N.Y. (AP/1010 WINS) -- A police detective said Tuesday that he hadn't finished shaking Muzzammil Hassan's hand upon meeting him before Hassan confessed to killing his wife.

The founder of an Islam-oriented television station who is accused of beheading his wife was abused by her for years, according to his lawyer, who said Friday he will pursue a defense combining that justification as well as psychiatric claims. Defense attorneys' claims that Muzzammil Hassan was victimized by his wife drew a blunt response from District Attorney Frank Sedita after a hearing Friday. "He chopped her head off," Sedita said. "He chopped her head off. That's all I have to say about Mr. Hassan's apparent defense that he was a battered spouse." Hassan, 45, is charged with one count...

A man accused of beheading his wife at the television station they founded to counter stereotypes of Muslims is likely to claim emotional distress was behind the killing in hopes of avoiding a murder conviction. Muzzammil Hassan, 45, is scheduled to be tried in January on a charge of second-degree murder in the death of 37-year-old Aasiya Hassan. A psychiatric defense would allow jurors to find him guilty of a lesser charge of manslaughter, according to Hassan's attorney, who made his plans known during a pretrial conference Friday. Muzzammil Hassan had been served with divorce papers a week before his...

BUFFALO, N.Y. — A man accused of beheading his wife at the television station they founded to counter stereotypes of Muslims is likely to claim emotional distress was behind the killing in hopes of avoiding a murder conviction. Muzzammil Hassan, 45, is scheduled to be tried in January on a charge of second-degree murder in the death of 37-year-old Aasiya Hassan. A psychiatric defense would allow jurors to find him guilty of a lesser charge of manslaughter, according to Hassan’s attorney, who made his plans known during a pretrial conference Friday. “Extreme emotional disturbance is not an insanity defense,” attorney...

On the occasion of its launch in 2004 from near Buffalo, New York, the Muslim television channel "Bridges TV" won the enthusiastic support of Secretary of State Colin Powell's media assistant, Stuart Holliday: "I laud your _expression of interest in promoting understanding and tolerance." And so it went; Bridges TV also met with euphoric media coverage, uncritical academic reaction, and blessings from sports giants like Muhammad Ali and Hakeem Olajuwan. From the start, however, Bridges TV amounted to a lie....

I have followed Bridges TV in a weblog entry, ("Were Investors in 'Bridges TV' Misled?") since it opened shop in 2004, critical of its faked demographic figures and its Islamist outlook. One hasn't heard much about Bridges TV for a while, however, presumably because its once-shimmering prospects declined under the weight of the realities of North American demographics. But it is about to reappear in the news with a vengeance, and for the most ironic possible reason. The station that Muzzammil Hassan, 44, founded with the achingly benevolent idea, in the words of a November 2004 biography, to help "non-Muslims...

Gruesome killing poses another test for US Muslims ERIC GORSKI, AP Religion Writer February 21, 2009 The crime was so brutal, shocking and rife with the worst possible stereotypes about their faith that some U.S. Muslims thought the initial reports were a hoax. The harsh reality of what happened in an affluent suburb of Buffalo, N.Y. — the beheading of 37-year-old Aasiya Hassan and arrest of her estranged husband in the killing — is another crucible for American Muslims. Here was a couple that appeared to be the picture of assimilation and tolerance, co-founders of a television network that aspired...

O'Reilly discusses with Laura Ingraham.

Kathryn, that self-pitying imam is part of a now familiar pattern: Pay no attention to that dead body; the real victim here is Islam. Beheaded woman in Buffalo? "Shocked friend says murder damages Islam's image." Hindus, Jews and Christians massacred in Bombay? "The recent terrorist attacks in Mumbai, India highlight the dangerously vulnerable situation of India’s Muslims." But enough about all these corpses: Let's talk about me. Yet we never do. Jonah writes today about the reluctance of journalists (a profession that congratulates itself on its "bravery" and "courage" far more than, say, firemen do) to speak truth to politically...

Beheading in Buffalo   By Robert SpencerFrontPageMagazine.com | Wednesday, February 18, 2009 Last Thursday, a woman named Aasiya Z. Hassan, 37, was founded decapitated in Orchard Park, New York, a village near Buffalo. Her husband, Muzzammil Hassan, 44, was charged, rather oddly, with second-degree murder in the case. But the specter of someone who beheaded his wife being charged only with second-degree murder was the least of the oddities in this case: Aasiya Hassan’s body was found in the offices of the cable channel, Bridges TV. Aasiya Hassan was the inspiration for Bridges TV, and Muzzammil Hassan was its...

Hussan did exactly what he preached moderate Muslims would not do. He beheaded his wife! That's violence. Where is America's media? Does a Muslim have to commit a beheading on the steps of NBC or something? What is the media afraid of? If the media cannot report a beheading in New York, what else have they deemed to be off limits? The media is supposed to report the news. A Muslim beheading his wife on an office floor is news. Not great news. But news.

NEW YORK (CNN) -- The founder of an Islamic television station in upstate New York aimed at countering Muslim stereotypes has confessed to beheading his wife, authorities said.

The estranged wife of a Muslim television executive feared for her life after filing for divorce last month from her abusive husband, her attorney said — and was then found beheaded Thursday in his upstate New York television studio.

It all began with what must have seemed like a good idea: creating a television network to counter the negative stereotypes many Americans hold against Muslims in the post-9/11 world. Muzzammil Hassan, who founded Bridges TV in November 2004 to counter anti-Islam stereotypes, surrendered to police Thursday. Hassan touted the network as the "first-ever full-time home for American Muslims," according to a press release. "Every day on television we are barraged by stories of a 'Muslim extremist, militant, terrorist, or insurgent,'" Hassan said in the 2004 release. "But the stories that are missing are the countless stories of Muslim tolerance,...