No defense from suspect in 2009 Fort Hood shooting
(I’m not sure if this is just an act of sheer balls or a not too subtle attempt at state funded suicide)
MICHAEL GRACZYK, AP
FORT HOOD, Texas (AP) — The soldier on trial for the deadly 2009 shooting rampage at Fort Hood refused to put up a fight on Wednesday, resting his case without calling a single witness
or testifying in his own defense.
Maj.
Nidal Hasan could face the death penalty if convicted for the attack
that killed 13 people and wounded more than 30 others at the Texas
military base. But when given the chance to
rebut prosecutors' lengthy case — which included nearly 90 witnesses
and hundreds of pieces of evidence — the Army psychiatrist declined.
About five minutes after court began Wednesday, a day after prosecutors rested their case, the judge asked Hasan how he wanted to proceed. He answered: "The defense rests."
The
judge, Col. Tara Osborn, then asked Hasan: "You have the absolute right
to remain silent. You do not have to say anything. You have the right
to testify if you choose. Understand?"
Hasan said he did. When the judge asked if this was his personal decision, he answered: "It is."
Osborn then adjourned the trial until Thursday to give prosecutors time to prepare closing arguments, and jurors were led out of the courtroom.
Hasan's
move wasn't completely unexpected, considering he has made no attempt
since his trial began two weeks ago to prove his innocence. He has sat
mostly in silence, raising few objections
and questioning only three prosecution witnesses.
Instead,
he appears to be making his case through leaks to the media — even
though jurors are barred from reading media reports about the case.
Taken
together, the leaks reveal that Hasan, an American-born Muslim,
justifying the shooting as a necessary killing of American soldiers to
protect Muslim insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Hasan
allowed his civil attorney to give The New York Times a report showing
that he told military mental health workers after the attack that he
could "still be a martyr" if convicted
and executed by the government. He also sent a personal letter sent to
the local newspaper.
Most
recently, two emails he released to the Times show that Hasan asked his
Army supervisors how to handle three cases that disturbed him. One
involved a soldier who reported to him
that U.S. troops had poured 50 gallons of fuel into the Iraqi water
supply as revenge.
"I
think I need a lot of reassurance for the first few times I come across
these," Hasan wrote in an email on Nov. 2, 2009 — three days before the
shooting.
Hasan's
email signature included a quote from the Quran: "All praises and
thanks go to Allah, the Cherisher and Sustainer of the Worlds."
On
the first day of the trial, Hasan had tried to cross-examine a former
supervisor about the fuel-dumping allegations, but Osborn quickly
silenced him. She ruled the line of questioning
out of bounds and not relevant to the case. The judge also barred Hasan
from arguing during trial that the killings were in defense of Taliban
fighters in Afghanistan.
Richard
Rosen, a military law expert who teaches at Texas Tech University and
has followed the trial, said Hasan might be using the media to present
the case that Osborn won't let him
in court.
"I
thought he might use this as a show trial to kind of put the Americans
on trial for things we're doing in the Middle East and Afghanistan,"
Rosen said. "But this may be an alternative
means of doing that."
Inside
the courtroom, Hasan has done little to challenge the narrative of
military prosecutors, who showed evidence of Hasan's laptop being used
to search the Internet for "jihad" and
find articles about calls to attack Americans in the days and even
hours before the rampage.
He
declined to challenge witnesses, including several shot during the
attack, who recalled hearing a shout of "Allahu Akbar!" — Arabic for
"God is great!" — inside a crowded medical building
at Fort Hood before Hasan opened fire using a laser-sighted handgun.
Hasan
did address jurors during a brief opening statement, but he told them
that evidence would show he was the shooter and called himself a soldier
who had "switched sides" in a war.
However,
he has never played the role of a high-threat, angry extremist. Hasan,
who was paralyzed from the waist down when shot by Fort Hood police
officers responding to the rampage,
hasn't gotten agitated in court or raised his voice.
The
military defense attorneys ordered to help him during the trial have
accused Hasan of trying to secure himself a death sentence. The
attorneys asked that their advisory roles be minimized,
but the judge refused.
Hasan
began the trial signaling that he would call on just two people to
testify — one a mitigation expert in capital murder cases and the other a
California professor of psychology and
religion. But on Tuesday,
he indicated to the judge that he would now call neither, leaving
Osborn raising her own skepticism that he would seize his last chance to
defend himself.
Prosecutors were expected to give their closing argument on Thursday. It was unclear whether Hasan would do the same.
———
Associated Press writer Will Weissert contributed to this report from Fort Hood.
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