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Jury Finds Honor Killer Muzzammil Hassan Guilty by Phyllis Chesler NewsRealBlog February 7, 2011 http://www.phyllis-chesler.com/936/muzzammil-hassan-guilty Send Comment RSS Share: Be the first of your friends to like this. The verdict is in. The jury found Muzzammil Hassan guilty of second-degree murder. Sentencing will take place on March 9; the minimum sentence for second-degree murder in New York State is 15 years and the maximum is 25 years to life. The District Attorney has said that he will push for the maximum sentence. This man has now orphaned two children, those whom he had with Aasiya, and traumatized the two children whose mother was one of Muzzammil's previous victims. Meanwhile, Faleh Almaleki has admitted that he intended to honor-murder his "too-American" daughter. This is a victory for the American jury system, which in this case valued the life of a woman more than she would have been valued in her native Pakistan. I congratulate the jury on its just and swift (50 minutes) decision. And I congratulate the prosecution on a job well done. But, in my opinion, Aasiya Zubair Hassan's killer should have been charged with first-degree murder. New York State has abolished capital punishment and reserves first-degree murder charges for murders involving special circumstances, such as torture, multiple murders, or the killing of a police officer. In my opinion, 40 stab wounds and a beheading does rise to the definition of torture. But whatever the charge would have been, it could not bring back the dead. Now, one can only hope that various communities of goodwill will reach out to embrace the traumatized children and hold them close. Related Topics: Honor Killings Is the MSM Ready to Acknowledge Muslim Honor Killings in America? by Phyllis Chesler NewsRealBlog February 8, 2011 http://www.phyllis-chesler.com/937/muslim-honor-killings-in-america Send Comment RSS Share: Be the first of your friends to like this. Once again, the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, and the Los Angeles Times have failed to send a reporter to cover the trial of Muzzammil Hassan in the case of a heinous honor murder committed in the United States. The Wall Street Journal carried an 879-word Associated Press story on its website, while the New York Times ran 269 words from the same story in its hardcopy version in a 2 x 7 inch cranny at the bottom of page A24 of the New York section. The AP reporter does not herself refer to this as an honor killing, leaving it up to one of her interviewees, a lecturer at the University of Buffalo, to make the case that the murder was "a mix of domestic violence and honor killing." In her past reporting on this case, she only went so far as to write that the murder "gave rise to speculation" that it was an honor killing. My readers may recall that both the New York Times and the Washington Post ran major original stories about Hindu honor killings in India. I am still waiting for them to seriously cover honor killings perpetrated in the United States. Of course, both NewsReal Blog and Frontpage have run a series of original stories about the case by yours truly. The conservative media has been covering honor killings in America; the left-liberal mainstream media has been reluctant to do so. But millimeter by millimeter, inch by inch, the mainstream media is slouching toward acknowledging that honor killings committed by Muslims do exist and are taking place in North America. Related Topics: Honor Killings
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