Posted on 01/22/2010 3:22:13 PM PST by SJackson
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 of second-degree murder in the Feb. 12 death of 37-year-old Aasiya Hassan at the offices of Bridges TV, the station the Pakistan-born couple established in 2004 to counter negative stereotypes of Muslims.
During Friday's hearing, Hassan fired the attorney who has been representing him for nearly a year and replaced him with a lawyer who promised "a revolutionary defense" at the March trial.
"The spouse was the dominant figure in this relationship," attorney Frank Bogulski said outside the courtroom. "He was the victim. She was verbally abusive. She had humiliated him."
Nancy Sanders, a former news director at Bridges TV, was skeptical of the abuse claim, noting the stocky Hassan stood over 6 feet tall and "filled a doorway," while Aasiya was slender and several inches shorter.
"I never ever heard her disparage him in the workplace at all," Sanders said. "It just did not seem to be in her nature. She was very gentle."
Bogulski's strategy differs slightly from that of Hassan's previous attorney, James Harrington, who had outlined a psychiatric defense claiming Hassan had experienced extreme emotional disturbance at the time of the killing.
But any psychiatric defense was placed in jeopardy Friday when the judge granted Assistant District Attorney Colleen Curtin Gable's request to bar such claims because the defense had taken too long to reveal its strategy.
Erie County Judge Thomas Franczyk left the door open for Bogulski to file motions seeking to have a psychiatric defense reinstated.
Hassan was served with divorce papers a week before his wife's decapitated body was found at the offices of their television station in Orchard Park, the Buffalo suburb where the couple also lived with their two small children and Muzzammil's two teenagers from a previous marriage.
Hassan was arrested after walking into the Orchard Park police station Feb. 12 and telling officers his wife was dead.
The way she died led the state president of the National Organization for Women, Marcia Pappas, and others to label Aasiya Hassan's death an "honor killng," which Pappas said appeared to be rooted in Muslim notions about women's subordination to men. Harrington dismissed the theory early on and domestic violence advocates cautioned against shifting attention from the universal issue of violence against women.
I thought one of Islam’s benefits was that you got to abuse your wife. Not the other way around. This guy must be a homo.
Concur!
I’d hit it.
yep...happens all the time.
MOST Muslim males are subservient/berated/intimidated by their women...it’s that burkah uniform...the Muslim men just can’t resist it.
so...when these incredibly weakened men realize how weak they are, somehow they’re able to muster up enough strength to overpower those incredibly strong burkah uniformed women and they attain the superhuman strength to chop off the heads of those women they force to wear those demeaning humanity-removing uniforms.........
sound silly?
confusing?
sound STUPID?
yep...only leftists believe that crap...but with the efforts of lawyers and the ‘Justice’ system (hey, how’s it goin’ Holder??) this man will probably be set free and the American People will be forced to pay for him having been inconvenienced...........
sorry all...this crap pushes my buttons
I can think of a lot better responses to this defense than what the prosecutor put forth just off the top of my head! I sure as heck hope there is more to it than what was quoted here... [Maybe when I go back to school I SHOULD take pre-law! If these idiots can pass law school and the bar it can’t be THAT hard for those who really apply themselves!]
There are police reports going back for years that indicate she was the one being abused. I sure as heck hope the jury doesn’t fall for this line of horse-puckey!
You know what I’m thinking right now?
What would Allah do to a man not able to control his wife?
As for his “defense” you’re totally right that this particular man is FOS! There are records going back for YEARS in regards to domestic abuse - she failed to press charges, but the records are still there. AND, she FINALLY left him, and filed for a restraining order a week before (or two - just read it and can’t remember now). I sure hope the prosecutor said more than is quoted in this article, and that the jury doesn’t fall for this... He needs to be put down just like the dog he is!
Welcome to the future. I wonder how those feminists will whine when they get married to guys like this? Oh, I’m sure they’ll whine about the bad old days when they were married to Christians who insisted on working and expected them to cook food and raise children. The Horror!
It’ll all be better when they’re all a “Mrs. Hassan” or “Mrs. Mohammad” since large numbers of white guys have told women to get stuffed or to just come around for sex.
You’ve come a long way, baby! But, you’re gonna go even further.
shari’a bump
If you’d like to be on or off, please FR mail me.
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