Nidal Hasan tells possible jurors he supports Taliban and imposition of sharia
The murderer at Fort Hood has revealed his belief system to some of the people who may be jurors in his trial:
Update: The Austin American Statesman says:
The Army psychiatrist charged in the 2009 deadly Fort Hood shooting rampage told some potential jurors Wednesday that he supports the Taliban and the strict Islamic Sharia law.He's not bound to be respectful of the judge, nor the jury. That he's now serving as his own lawyer is ludicrous and obscene, but obviously a tactic of his that partly stems from his sick belief system.
Maj. Nidal Hasan, who is serving as his own attorney in his court-martial, asked questions of individual Army officers on the second day of jury selection. On Tuesday after the first group of 20 potential jurors arrived, he declined to ask questions. [...]
In answering Hasan's questions, several potential jurors said they had negative views of Muslims, the Quran or Sharia law. But they said they could put aside those views and only consider evidence in the case.
Hasan told one colonel that Abdulhakim Muhammad, sentenced to life in prison for the June 2009 fatal shooting of a soldier outside a Little Rock, Ark., military recruiting station, was his "brother and friend." He asked if that would affect her ability to serve, and she said no.
The military judge, Col. Tara Osborn, told Hasan several times to rephrase his questions and avoid referring to himself as the shooter, saying he is acting as an attorney during jury selection and will be held to the same standards. She reminded him that he was not testifying.
Update: The Austin American Statesman says:
He also pressed a female major about why she held similarly unfavorable views of Sharia Law, or Islamic religious law. “I’m no expert in Sharia Law, but it certainly seems like something I would not want to live under,” she told him. “I think it would pretty much suck.”Interesting. But if Hasan himself called the Taliban "imperfect", that's odd. Is that some other kind of strategy he's using?
Hasan asked another potential juror if he would hold against him the fact that he believed that the Taliban, who imposed a strict version of Sharia Law on Afghanistan, “were imperfect Muslims trying to establish a perfect religion of almighty Allah.”
The questioning also revealed the difficulty of finding high ranking Army officers who have not formed an opinion about the shooting. One colonel told the judge that while he would attempt to be impartial, “(Hasan) is sitting here in a wheelchair because of wounds he received on that specific day.”
Labels: anti-americanism, islam, jihad, military, misogyny, terrorism, United States
