New York TV Exec, Pakistani Native Guilty in Beheading Death of Wife

By Alicia Cruz
The Black Urban Times

Muzzammil "Mo" Hassan, founder of a Muslim-oriented New York television station, was found guilty Monday of the 2009 beheading of his wife, Aasiya Hassan at Bridges TV, a studio the couple opened after the September 11 attacks on the World Trading Center.

The jury deliberated just one hour before returning with their second-degree murder verdict, rejecting Mo Hassan's claim that he killed his wife after years of abuse and because he was afraid of her. The couple were both natives of Pakistan.

Hassan, an imposing figure at 6 feet tall, defended himself at his trial and remained silent when the verdict was read.

Prosecutor's said Hassan's wife planned to divorce him and had papers served on him a week before the gory murder took place. Hassan, 46, was arrested on February 12, 2009 after he walked into the Orchard Park police station and calmly told officers he murdered his wife.

While Mo Hassan savagely butchered Aasiya, their children, then 4-and-6-years-old were sitting in their mother's car with his teenage son from one of his two previous marriages.

The children were on their way to dinner when Aasiya stopped by the studio to drop off her husband's laundry. The couple's two children were sent to live with their maternal grandparents in Pakistan after their mother's death.

Prosecutor Colleen Curtin Gable had jurors wiping tears from their eyes as she gave closing arguments.

She told the court how Mo Hassan was lying in wait for his wife inside the studio with two knives he purchased less than an hour before the murder, and how he covertly parked his car, obscuring it from view.

Then as Aasiya entered the studio, Mo Hassan pounced on her in a dark hallway and began stabbing her more than 40 times in the back, head and chest before decapitating her.

The gruesome attack was partially caught on surveillance video.

During his two-hour closing remarks, Mo Hassan spoke of his hurt and pain; he described his wife's rages and called the domestic violence system a "religion of patriarchy" that "unleashed a bloodbath on American women" because "battered men have no legal way out."

He told jurors how he was disappointed by the domestic-violence system, which refused to recognize men as victims, and blamed his wife's "troubled childhood" for her abusive behavior towards him.

However, unlike prosecutors, Mo Hassan had no medical evidence or witnesses to corroborate his claims of abuse at the hands of his wife.

During the trial, prosecutors produced numerous police reports filed by Aasiya along with her medical records that documented treatment she sought for neck pain, back pain, and early onset cataracts, all which may have been caused by repeated trauma, along with other injuries that proved she was a battered spouse.

Hassan fired three lawyers and used his fourth lawyer as a legal adviser, as required by law before he decided to represent himself at trial.

After Mo Hassan's arrest, many speculated that Aasiya's murder was an honor killing, a practice widely accepted in the couple's native country Pakistan and among some Muslim men who feel betrayed by their wives.

Read: Muslim Community Knew of Mo Hassan's Abuse of Wife

Attorney Nadia Shahram, a Buffalo Seminary Alumnae, lectures on the effects of religion and culture on family law, and said she believed Aasiya's murder was more than a domestic-violence homicide per the separation of her head from her body.

"He separated the mind, which he saw as worthless, and kicked it," said Shahram.

When Mo Hassan is sentenced March 9, he faces up to 25 years to life in prison.