Victim Blinded In a Post-9/11 Hate Crime Now Fights For His Attacker’s Life
IN FOCUS, 11 Jul 2011
Daily Mail Reporter – TRANSCEND Media Service
Days after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, Mark Anthony Stroman went on a ‘mission of revenge’ in the Dallas area.
He killed two South Asian immigrants and shot another – Rais Bhuiyan – in the face at close range, blinding him in one eye.
Stroman, 41, is held in the Texas State Penitentiary at Huntsville, where he is scheduled to be executed July 20.
Stroman was convicted of capital murder for the fatal shooting of Indian immigrant Vasudev Patel in Mesquite, Texas on October 4, 2001.
But now Mr Bhuiyan is taking the highly unusual step of petitioning to get the sentence of his attacker commuted from the death penalty to life in prison without parole.
Mr Bhuiyan, a devout Muslim who says he learned to forgive Stroman years ago, told MSNBC: ‘I’m trying to do my best not to allow the loss of another human life. I’ll knock on every door possible’.
Mr Bhuiyan has circulated petitions on Stroman’s behalf, set up a website last year called ‘World Without Hate’, and requested to meet with the convicted man in prison.
His request has not yet been granted, but if it is he could be one of the last people to see the doomed man.
Mr Bhuiyan told MSNBC he has heard from many supporters of his campaign, including people back in his home country of Bangladesh.
Relatives of Stroman’s victims are also said to be lending their support, although they did not want to be named in public.
Legal experts told MSNBC Mr Bhuiyan’s campaign is an uphill battle, since Texas has rarely commuted death penalty sentences in recent years.
Mr Bhuiyan was a 26-year old recent immigrant when he encountered Stroman.
It took him years to recover from the gun shot, and he still carries bits of metal embedded in his face.
Mr Bhuiyan lost the sight in one of his eyes, but did not suffer brain damage.
He did loose a fiancé in the ordeal, because a planned trip back to Bangladesh to get married was long delayed.
Mr Bhuiyan earned a degree in aeronautical engineering and works as a technology professional in Dallas, although he says he wants to go to journalism school and study human rights, after trying to save Stroman’s life.
Stroman admitted to going on a drug-fuelled rampage after September 11, entering convenience stores in the Dallas area with a shotgun.
He reportedly asked clerks where they were from, then fired.
Stroman was charged but not tried for the killing of Waqar Hasan, a Pakistani immigrant on September 15, 2001 in Dallas.
Stroman boasted that he was an ‘Arab Slayer,’ and composed crude rhymes glorifying his crimes.
Now, his defence lawyer, with the help of Mr Bhuiyan, argue that Stroman was mentally impaired and delusional at the time of the shootings – evidence that was not presented in the guilt-innocence part of his trial.
Mr Stroman’s lawyer says he suffered from neglect and abuse as a child, and his long-running methamphetamine addiction, combined with his obsession with media coverage of September 11 to make him not in a ‘condition of mind’.
Stroman posted on a website: ‘I cannot tell you that I am an innocent man. I am not asking you to feel sorry for me and I won’t hide the truth.
‘I am a human being and made a terrible mistake out of love, grief and anger, and believe me I am paying for it every single minute of the day and it haunts me in my sleep as well’.
Mr Bhuiyan told MSNBC he will do his best to save his attacker’s life.
Go to Original – dailymail.co.uk
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