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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, 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.

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. — The founder of an Islam-oriented television station who is accused of beheading his wife is due in a Buffalo courtroom for proceedings in advance of his murder trial. Muzzammil “Mo” Hassan is tentatively scheduled to stand trial later this month for the death of his wife, Aasiyah Hassan, last year. Pretrial motions are scheduled for Friday.

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 western New York man accused of beheading his wife at the Muslim-oriented television station they founded will claim he was a victim of years of abuse at home. Muzzammil Hassan (moo-ZAHM'-mel HAH'-sahn) was in a Buffalo courtroom Friday, where he fired the lawyer who has been representing him for nearly a year and hired a new one with a different strategy. New lawyer Frank Bogulski says he'll pursue a battered-person defense.....

It’s more than domestic violence. And it’s not being reported. Mark Steyn hit the mark when he wrote: “Just asking, but are beheadings common in western New York? I used to spend a lot of time in that neck of the woods and I don’t remember decapitation as a routine form of murder. Yet the killing of Aasiya Hassan seems to have elicited a very muted response…But, when Muzzammil Hassan kills his wife and “the face of Muslim news” is unveiled rather more literally, detached from her corpse at his TV studios, it’s all he can do to make the...

"Words mean things," Rush Limbaugh likes to say. Well, if the word manslaughter means anything at all, why would a court in the state of New York – where English presumably is still spoken and understood – accept a plea of manslaughter from Muzzammil "Mo" Hassan? Hassan, if you remember, is the Bridges TV founder charged with the decapitation death of his wife, Aasiya Zabair Hassan, in his upscale suburban Buffalo office last February, where she was found with three dozen stab wounds to her body and her head sawed off with a steak knife.

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...

If someone said the word “beheaded” in 1793 most people would immediately think, “Guillotine.” In 2009 and when someone says the word “beheaded” most people would immediately think – what? Baha’i? Um, no, that doesn’t sound quite right. Jain? Um, that’s not it, either. Quaker? Nah. Muslim. Yeah, that’s it! Muslim. Ditto “honor” killings of girls and women. Is this racist or reality? ... [W]hen a Christian or Jewish man beats up or kills his wife or girlfriend, all other Christian or Jewish women in the neighborhood do not take it as a warning to become “more obedient.” In the...

[One of the funniest photos you will ever see!] About ten days ago, an ad for “Muslim matrimonials” appeared right next to our story about the Muslim TV executive who beheaded his wife. You can see the hilarious juxtaposition on the screen capture above. Click the image or here for a full size, full screen image. At first we thought our internet advertising provider had merely misinterpreted the context of the key words in the story — Muslim, husband, wife – and placed the ad there by mistake. But we’ve changed our minds. Because these are the smartest companies in...

Bridges TV founder and Chief Executive Muzzammil Hassan founded the TV network in 2004. According to a Reuters story at that time, "his wife came up with the idea in December 2001 while listening to the radio on a road trip.": "Some derogatory comments were being made about Muslims that offended her," Hassan told Reuters ahead of Tuesday's launch. "She was seven months pregnant, and she thought she didn't want her kids growing up in this environment." So he founded Bridges TV to combat negative perceptions of Muslims. But now that he has beheaded his wife, I'm afraid this prominent...

Orchard Park police are investigating a particularly gruesome killing, the beheading of a woman, after her husband -- an influential member of the local Muslim community -- reported her death to police Thursday. Police identified the victim as Aasiya Z. Hassan, 37. Detectives have charged her husband, Muzzammil Hassan, 44, with second-degree murder. "He came to the police station at 6:20 p.m. [Thursday] and told us that she was dead," Orchard Park Police Chief Andrew Benz said late this morning. Muzzammil Hassan told police that his wife was at his business, Bridges TV, on Thorn Avenue in the village. Officers...