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An Afghan interpreter evaded death during the war but met a grim fate in Texas - NBC News
NBC News ^ | 8/10/2025 | Tim Stelloh

Posted on 08/10/2025 8:11:15 AM PDT by Signalman

News of Abdul Niazi’s death arrived in a chilling phone call.

It was March 26, nearly the end of Ramadan, and his wife wanted to know when to expect her husband, a former U.S. military interpreter who lost both legs in a bomb blast in Afghanistan and became one of Houston’s most well-known advocates for new Afghan migrants.

It was almost time to break the day’s fast, recalled Niazi’s cousin, but he hadn’t returned home. So she called his cellphone.

“I’m not your husband,” the man on the other end of the line said, according to Rizwanullah Niazi, Niazi’s cousin. “I killed your husband.”

The shock of that call intensified when his family learned what authorities later alleged in bail documents filed in Harris County District Court: An Afghan national who’d sought help from Niazi was accused of stabbing him more than a dozen times over frustration with the slow pace of the U.S. immigration system.

The 34-year-old’s death left the Marines he served with reeling and a hole in Houston’s sizable Afghan community.

“I still don’t believe that he is not with us anymore,” said Nisar Momand, who met Niazi more than a decade ago and, like his friend, helps recently resettled Afghans obtain services and navigate the immigration bureaucracy.

“Abdul was like the backbone of the community,” Momand said. “Without a backbone, we are totally disabled.”

“It’s an unspeakable tragedy,” said Brandon Remington, a former U.S. Marine Corps platoon commander who worked with Niazi in Afghanistan and helped him flee to the United States amid death threats from the Taliban. “Given how much he escaped death and to die in that way — it’s insane. It feels like the universe is crazy.”

Masiullah Sahil, 37, is accused of first-degree murder in Niazi’s death and, until last month, was being held in lieu of $750,000 bond. After prosecutors failed to indict him within three months, as Texas law requires, a judge ordered him released on a personal recognizance bond that required no payment, court records show.

“It just didn’t get done,” a prosecutor said during a July 10 hearing about the failure to obtain that indictment, according to NBC affiliate KPRC of Houston.

Sahil remains jailed, however. The same day Harris County District Court Judge Emily Detoto ordered him released, the district attorney’s office filed a witness tampering charge. He’s being held on $25,000 bond, jail records show. Sahil is scheduled to be arraigned on both charges Aug. 12.

Still, the prosecution’s apparent failure infuriated Niazi’s friends and family, who are calling for an investigation into the district attorney’s office.

“What if he’d gotten out and came and killed his wife and kids?” said Niazi’s close friend Mohammad Bayan, referring to Niazi’s family. “I was completely heartbroken and outraged.”

A spokesperson for the Harris County District Attorney’s Office said the situation is under review with prosecutors assigned to the case. Sahil’s lawyer did not respond to a request for comment.

A fearless interpreter Niazi was raised in Jalalabad, east of Kabul, and worked as an English teacher before he got a job as a translator with the U.S. Marines in Afghanistan in 2011, said Rizwanullah Niazi, a cousin who also worked as a military translator.

Michael Egan, a Marine who led a unit that Abdul Niazi was attached to for several months in Helmand province, described him as one of the best combat interpreters he worked with — always levelheaded and alert, comfortable in potentially lethal situations and driven by a desire to protect his home.

“He was one of the more courageous and fearless people out there,” said Egan, 36. “You knew if Niazi was with you, you were set.”


TOPICS: Miscellaneous
KEYWORDS: abdulniazi; afghanistan; become3rdworld; brandonremington; emilydetoto; harriscounty; helmandprovince; houston; import3rdworld; interpreter; jalalabad; masiullahsahil; michaelegan; mohammadbayan; nisarmomand; rizwanullahniazi; taliban; texas; timstelloh; usmc

1 posted on 08/10/2025 8:11:15 AM PDT by Signalman
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To: Signalman

Inferior cultures do what they have always done. Send them back home.


2 posted on 08/10/2025 8:13:59 AM PDT by nwrep
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To: Signalman

later


3 posted on 08/10/2025 8:14:23 AM PDT by Gay State Conservative (Import The Third World,Become The Third World)
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To: AdmSmith; AnonymousConservative; Arthur Wildfire! March; Berosus; Bockscar; BraveMan; cardinal4; ...
[snip] Masiullah Sahil, 37, is accused of first-degree murder in Niazi's death and, until last month, was being held in lieu of $750,000 bond. After prosecutors failed to indict him within three months, as Texas law requires, a judge ordered him released on a personal recognizance bond that required no payment, court records show...

The same day Harris County District Court Judge Emily Detoto ordered him released, the district attorney’s office filed a witness tampering charge. He’s being held on $25,000 bond, jail records show. Sahil is scheduled to be arraigned on both charges Aug. 12. Still, the prosecution's apparent failure infuriated Niazi's friends and family, who are calling for an investigation into the district attorney’s office. [/snip]

4 posted on 08/10/2025 8:25:33 AM PDT by SunkenCiv (The moron troll Ted Holden believes that humans originated on Ganymede.)
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To: Signalman
"over frustration with the slow pace of the U.S. immigration system."

There you have it.

Trump's fault.

5 posted on 08/10/2025 8:25:41 AM PDT by OKSooner (Who says shooting woolly mammoths with a 1911 is a bad thing? )
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To: Gay State Conservative

Released ? Maybe the judge should be sent to aide the Afghan community?


6 posted on 08/10/2025 8:26:02 AM PDT by dvan (Send Them Home!Napolatono)
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To: Signalman

These are the people that G W MORON cares about - not americans or american soldiers


7 posted on 08/10/2025 8:27:53 AM PDT by imabadboy99
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To: Signalman

So much of this mess can be traced back to George W. Bush. Douglas MacArthur warned us not to get involved in a land war in Asia.

But W knew better, as did LBJ before him.

W should have bombed every possible terrorist site. Make the rubble bounce. But no. He went for an occupation. Ground troops. Translators. Nation-building.

And so here we are.


8 posted on 08/10/2025 8:29:07 AM PDT by Leaning Right (It's morning in America. Again.)
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To: Signalman

My sympathies to the widow, the family of this remarkable man.
He had already lost both legs in that extended war.
He had put his life on the line repeatedly, helping us via interpreting the language.

Then, to be slain by one of his own Afghan brothers, so tragically ironic. Many, if not most Afghans who came here, arrived with unrealistic expectations on how soon opportunities would open up for them. Many of these, still had few English skills. Even less Social Skills, having lived under the thumb of the Taliban since Biden’s disasterous withdrawal.

Their personal frustration is understandable, and many remain traumatized by the conflict.
Working with this group of immigrants, was but another calculated risk in the short life of Abdul Niazi.


9 posted on 08/10/2025 8:34:42 AM PDT by lee martell
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To: Signalman

The slow pace of the U.S. immigration system is intended, at least in principle, to vet would-be immigrants. I’d say that in this case, the perp pretty definitively unvetted himself.

In any event, this was very poor planning on the perp’s part. He should have done this while Biden was still in office. He’d be safe. Of course, it probably wasn’t planned. It was probably sudden islamic rage syndrome. Were Biden still in the White House, he’d be safe on that count too, but things have changed. At least until 2028.


10 posted on 08/10/2025 8:49:02 AM PDT by sphinx
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To: Leaning Right

As I like to say, a punitive expedition to Afghanistan to take out OBL would have been fine. The NeoCon “Nation Building” BS was a really, really bad idea.


11 posted on 08/10/2025 8:49:18 AM PDT by FreedomPoster (Islam delenda est)
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To: Signalman

To Biden everybody in Afghanistan was an ‘interpreter’.


12 posted on 08/10/2025 8:51:06 AM PDT by dfwgator (Endut! Hoch Hech!)
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To: Signalman

How is that Texas’s fault, or the US Immigration system?

Afghan kills Afghan. It’s what they do.


13 posted on 08/10/2025 9:03:53 AM PDT by Alas Babylon! (Repeal the Patriot Act; Abolish the DHS; reform FBI top to bottom!)
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To: Leaning Right

I don’t mind ground troops rolling them up. We should have then rolled up Pakistan.

After we then made a few pyramids from skulls and burned them all under a hundred thousand Qurans, we should have left.


14 posted on 08/10/2025 9:07:11 AM PDT by Alas Babylon! (Repeal the Patriot Act; Abolish the DHS; reform FBI top to bottom!)
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To: Signalman

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/army-interpreter-afghanistan-abdul-rahman-niazi-murdered-b2723480.html


This happened back in march.


15 posted on 08/10/2025 9:16:13 AM PDT by PeterPrinciple (Thinking Caps are no longer being issued, but there must be a warehouse full of them somewhere)
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To: Signalman

This was the rice cake of articles: no nutrition provided. Not even some speculation as to motivation? And how about that prosecutor- “It just didn’t get done” what does that mean? If you have a good case, why couldn’t you get it done in that priori? If not, why are you charging him with witness tampering in a case that isn’t going to get filed. The article leaves us none the wiser


16 posted on 08/10/2025 9:17:16 AM PDT by j.havenfarm (24 years on Free Republic, 12/10/24! More than 10,500 replies and still not shutting up!)
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To: Signalman

“After prosecutors failed to indict him within three months, as Texas law requires, a judge ordered him released on a personal recognizance bond that required no payment, court records show.”

The justice system has a fair number of prosecutors and judges that need to be removed from office.


17 posted on 08/10/2025 9:23:42 AM PDT by TheDon (Remember the J6 political prisoners! Remember Ashli Babbitt!)
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To: Signalman

Primitive subhumans. That was kind of a weak excuse for killing him when 21 million bass turds were given piggy back rides across the Rio Grande by the “border patrol” who felt sorry for their cousins just wanting to come here for a better socialist life where everything is free. Even the dinero.


18 posted on 08/10/2025 9:51:42 AM PDT by FlingWingFlyer (They brought down the WTC now we're electing them to all government positions in the U.S.)
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To: dvan
Maybe the judge should be sent to aide the Afghan community?

Sounds like the judge already is - the taliban/al qaida side of the afghan “community.” /s

19 posted on 08/10/2025 11:22:07 AM PDT by Repeat Offender
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