06-06-2009, 07:28 AM
ATLANTA: A former Georgia Tech student charged with plotting to help terrorist groups turned the closing arguments in his federal trial on Thursday into a lesson on Islamic principles, bewildering courtroom observers.
Syed Haris Ahmed, 24, had waived his right to a jury trial so he could deliver closing arguments and warned last month he would use his time to focus on the “message of Islam”.
Even so, the judge, prosecutors and even his defence attorney seemed unprepared: He read nine verses of the Quran in Arabic and never directly addressed the charges that could land him in federal prison for 15 years.
“I hope that if I deliver the message that has been revealed by Allah, the promise of protection from evil will come true for me,” Ahmed said during the hushed and sometimes stumbling 45-minute address. ap
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp...009_pg7_13
Syed Haris Ahmed, 24, had waived his right to a jury trial so he could deliver closing arguments and warned last month he would use his time to focus on the “message of Islam”.
Even so, the judge, prosecutors and even his defence attorney seemed unprepared: He read nine verses of the Quran in Arabic and never directly addressed the charges that could land him in federal prison for 15 years.
“I hope that if I deliver the message that has been revealed by Allah, the promise of protection from evil will come true for me,” Ahmed said during the hushed and sometimes stumbling 45-minute address. ap
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp...009_pg7_13