Attorney: Hasan's 'religious rights' prohibitedChad Groening - OneNewsNow - 12/28/2009 5:00:00 AMBookmark and Share
One of the nation's foremost critics of Islam says it's absolutely reprehensible that the lead attorney for the man charged in the murderous rampage at Fort Hood last month is trying to paint his client as a victim.
Nidal Malik HasanArmy Major Nidal Malik Hasan is suspected of killing 14 people, including an unborn baby, while wounding more than two dozen others at the Army post in Texas on November 5. Hasan remains hospitalized at Brooke Army Medical Center at Fort Sam Houston, Texas, where he is paralyzed from the chest down.
The San Antonio Express-News recently reported that Hasan's attorney, John P. Galligan, claims the Army is violating his client's religious rights because it prohibited him from praying from the Koran in Arabic with a relative. Hasan was reportedly on the phone with his brother when the guard cut the conversation short because the suspect was not speaking English. The military has restricted Hasan to only speaking English to visitors or on the phone, unless an Army-approved translator is present.
Robert Spencer"It's very common for Islamic jihadists to claim victim status when they're in prison," notes Robert Spencer, director of Jihad Watch. "Part of the al Qaeda playbook is that they should always claim that they have been tortured, whatever the truth may be."
In Spencer's opinion, Galligan's claims are at fault. "It's reprehensible for this lawyer to be demanding that Nidal Hasan be given free and unrestricted access to the ideology that led him to commit those murders," he argues. "It would be like saying that a Nazi war criminal has to have a copy of Mein Kampf in his jail cell."
The Jihad Watch director concludes that the military is completely justified in imposing the language restrictions on Hasan.
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