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Muslim TV Executive Found Guilty in Wife’s Beheading

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(RNS) A former banking executive who helped launch the nation’s first Muslim television station faces 15 years to life in prison after a jury convicted him on Tuesday (Feb. 8) of murdering and decapitating his wife nearly two years ago.
Muzzammil “Mo” Hassan, 46, never denied killing Aasiya Zubair Hassan, who he met while visiting his native Pakistan in 2000. They married the same year, and settled in upstate New York.
Shocked by what she considered to be anti-Muslim hostility in the American media, Hassan’s wife persuaded her husband to start a television station to help improve Muslims’ image and their relationship with other Americans.
In 2004, they launched Bridges TV in Orchard Park, N.Y., which featured a mix of religious, cultural and news programming from a Muslim perspective, as well as non-Muslim programming. The station, operated by a multi-religious group, continues to broadcast.
Behind the ambitious project was a turbulent relationship in which, according to trial testimony, Hassan abused his wife. A week before her murder on Feb. 12, 2009, Zubair Hassan, 37, had filed for divorce.
Many anti-Muslim critics seized on the crime as an example of the inherent evil and misogyny of Islam. Muslims and others have rejected those allegations, condemned Hassan, and charged critics with exploiting a tragedy to demonize a religion that Zubair Hassan deeply cared for.
- OMAR SACIRBEY, Religion News Service



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pagansister

posted February 10, 2011 at 3:30 pm


Wonder if NY state has the death penalty? He deserves it.



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pagansister

posted February 10, 2011 at 3:31 pm


Just reread the article—and he faces 15 years! to life? Actually as I wrote above, the death penalty would fit, but what is really wrong is that he could get as little as 15 years???



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Heretic_for_Christ

posted February 10, 2011 at 3:38 pm


A man has murdered his wife — unfortunately, that is all too common a crime.
The man is Muslim — doesn’t change anything.
He BEHEADED her (it is not clear from this report whether that was how he murdered her or what he did to the corpse after he murdered her) — and it is at this moment that I start feeling the dizziness that attends any sudden shift from the humdrum world of spousal murder in the west to the exotic world of spousal murder in the east.
Excuse me, I have to vomit.



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Henrietta22

posted February 10, 2011 at 3:55 pm


Elsewhere on the net I read that he was givn 2nd degree murder, not lst degree murder. How does premeditated murder just get 2nd degree? He moved out and the next day called her and asked her to drop off his clothes, he wouldn’t be there. She was his office mgr., so most likely knew what was in the office. Why she trusted him is another question, she could have called a delivery svc. and had the clothes del. to him and not have a chance of seeing him phyically. He had already beaten her up according to the report I read. He stabbed her and decapitated her with a long knife. If she knew that the knife was in the office I don’t think she would have gone there. As far as this being an Islam thing, the Muslims don’t think so. It’s undoubtly a cultural thing with these people, must be because it keeps happening. Today in the news a Pakistanian woman ran away to marry a man in a different tribe than her family. They wanted her to marry a relative. They talked her into coming back to see them and when she trusted them the father and another relative electrocuted her and lied and said she committed suicide. The police have the evidence and she was electrocuted. The article stated that this particular tribe she was from does this more than any other, because it is a cultural thing. Cultural things can be just as dangerous as religious things, it seems.



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cknuck

posted February 10, 2011 at 6:25 pm


“Shocked by what she considered to be anti-Muslim hostility in the American media, Hassan’s wife persuaded her husband to start a television station to help improve Muslims’ image and their relationship with other Americans.”
You just can’t ignore the irony in that.



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dont ignore truth

posted February 10, 2011 at 10:11 pm


that was all a setup. i m not saying about the murder but this whole thing from beginning to show wrong image of islam. by the way why so many crimes in USA are committed by cristian but are not being referred to cristianity? once the oklahoma bombing takes place so every where in the media on the HEADLINES its shown out loud as some muslim did that not as some egytion or israili did that and when they find out it was done by a Cristian the news comes only in side lines somewhere hidden that it was done by an AMERICAN. Well why not now refer it to religion as well like some american cristian did that?



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dont ignore truth

posted February 10, 2011 at 10:12 pm


that was all a setup. i m not saying about the murder but this whole thing from beginning to show wrong image of islam. by the way why so many crimes in USA are committed by cristian but are not being referred to cristianity? once the oklahoma bombing takes place so every where in the media on the HEADLINES its shown out loud as some muslim did that not as some egytion or israili did that and when they find out it was done by a Cristian the news comes only in side lines somewhere hidden that it was done by an AMERICAN. Well why not now refer it to religion as well like some american cristian did that?



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