Who is the inmate and what was his crime?
- Abdulhakim Muhammad is serving a life sentence without parole for his 2009 drive-by shooting of two soldiers — killing one, Pvt. William Long of the U.S. Army — outside a military recruiting station in Little Rock, Arkansas.
- He pleaded guilty to capital murder, attempted capital murder and 10 counts of unlawful discharge of a firearm from a vehicle, Arkansas Online reported.
- Before his conversion to Islam, Muhammad was a “middle-class, Baptist kid from Memphis, born Carlos Bledsoe, who played youth basketball and worked at Chuck E. Cheese’s,” the Knoxville News-Sentinel reported.
Why did he carry out the shooting?
- He was preparing for jihad, the News-Sentinel said.
- In his own words, “It’s a war out against Islam and Muslims and I’m on the side of the Muslims point blank. … The U.S. has to pay for the rape, murder, bloodshed, blasphemy it has done and still doing to the Muslims and Islam. So consider this a small retaliation the best is to come Allah willing. This is not the first attack and won’t be the last,” the News-Sentinel added.
- Muhammad sent seven handwritten letters to the Memphis Commercial Appeal regretting his failure to do more harm, the News-Sentinel noted.
- A law enforcement official told The Associated Press that Muhammad had been under investigation by an FBI-led terrorism task force since his return from Yemen earlier in 2009, the News-Sentinel added.
What is his dietary demand being heard in federal court?
- Muhammad said the Arkansas Department of Correction is violating his right to religious freedom by refusing to provide him a “halal diet” in accordance with his Muslim religion, Arkansas Online reported.
- “Mr. Muhammad sincerely believes as a practicing Muslim he must consume a halal diet,” his attorney, Jess Askew, told the outlet.
- Askew told Arkansas Online that such a diet requires daily consumption of halal meats, which could be fish or other meats except for pork.
- Muhammad complained in a 2015 lawsuit that court decisions in 2002 and 2006 led the department to begin serving kosher food for inmates whose religions required it, but that it won’t accommodate him in the same way, the outlet said.
- A judge began hearing testimony Monday, the outlet said.
(H/T: Town Hall)
via TheBlaze.com – Stories
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