A victim of 9/11 hate crime now fights for his attacker's life
Days after the 9/11 terror attacks, 31-year old laborer Mark Stroman went on a shooting spree in the Dallas area. In a drug-fueled mission of revenge, he killed two South Asian immigrants and shot another — Rais Bhuiyan — in the face at close range, blinding him in one eye.
Shortly after his arrest, Stroman boasted of his role as "Arab Slayer."
Now, as Stroman faces imminent execution in Texas, an unlikely champion is fighting to save his life: Bhuiyan, who spent years recovering from the wounds he suffered in the attack.
"I've had many years to grow spiritually," said Bhuiyan, a Muslim who immigrated to the U.S. from Bangladesh and now works as technology professional in Dallas. "I'm trying to do my best not to allow the loss of another human life. I'll knock on every door possible."
Bhuiyan began collecting signatures late last year on a petition asking the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles to commute Stroman's death penalty sentence to life in prison without parole through his website "World without Hate." Now he is working systematically through legal and political channels save Stroman's life.
"I'm getting a lot of support from all over the world … even my home country, where the Internet is a luxury," Bhuiyan said.
Among those supporting his cause are some relatives of the two victims who were killed.
'Unprecedented'
The odds are stacked against Stroman, 41, who is held in the Texas State Penitentiary at Huntsville, where he is scheduled to be executed on July 20.
The seven-member Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles holds the power to recommend a commutation to the governor, but it has only done so in one death penalty case since December 2000, when the current Gov. Rick Perry took office. That recommendation was denied by Perry.
During his administration, 229 death row inmates have been executed — far more than the 152 put to death during predecessor George W. Bush's term or the 92 executed while Ann Richards occupied the governor's mansion — a record at the time. Nor has Perry exercised his power to grant a one-time 30-day stay of execution.
Even when immense public pressure has been brought to bear — as was the case before convicted murderer Karla Faye Tucker was put to death — the board has not bent. Tucker became an international cause celebre because of her gender and her widely publicized conversion to Christianity while in prison. She was put to death by lethal injection at Huntsville on Feb. 3, 1998, the first woman to be executed in the United States in 14 years.
"If (clemency) happens in this case (Stroman's), it would be unprecedented," said Rick Halperin, who teaches history and runs the Center for Human Rights at Southern Methodist University in Dallas. "If, in fact, the ears, hearts and minds of the parole board and possibly the governor can be persuaded to spare a life, it would be quite a gesture. I would like to say there is a precedent for it in this state, but there isn't."
Victim's plea as mitigating evidence?
But for a victim to come forward in a capital case to seek leniency for the condemned is so unusual that Stromon's defense attorney Lydia Brandt is hopeful that the outcome could be different this time.
"What makes this unique is that we have a victim coming forward and asking the board for clemency," said Brandt. "This isn't just lawyers seeking clemency."
In addition to Bhuiyan's public appeal, Brandt says at least one of the other victims' relatives has agreed to give a statement to the court, but will ask that his or her name be kept out of the public record.
Even if the board of pardons is not persuaded by Bhuiyan's plea, Brandt plans to bring his call for mercy to state courts as mitigating evidence that was not heard during Stroman's 2002 trial.
Bhuiyan now recalls that as a new immigrant to the country, only 26 at the time, he was in a state of paralysis, thinking only about how he would survive. He had little understanding of the legal system, and had no idea how the trial would play out.
"In death penalty practice, the jury is allowed to consider mitigating evidence, which can be virtually anything like good character, abuse as a child, drug and alcohol addiction," said Brandt. "We could go back to the court… and say this is evidence that the jury was not allowed to hear."
Mental state in question
In addition, she will argue that Stroman was mentally impaired and delusional at the time of the shootings — evidence that was not presented in the guilt-innocence phase of his trial.
The basic facts of Stroman's crime are not in question. He shot all three of his victims while they were working at convenience stores. The crime for which Stroman was convicted of capital murder was the shooting death of Indian immigrant Vasudev Patel in Mesquite, Texas on Oct. 4, 2001.
Image: Mark Anthony Stroman
Texas Department of Criminal Justice
Mark Anthony Stroman said he was personally avenging the 9/11 attacks. However, he has since expressed remorse and admitted wrongdoing.
Stroman was charged but not tried for the killing of Waqar Hasan, a Pakistani immigrant on Sept. 15, 2001in Dallas.
Five days later, he walked into the Dallas gas station and store where Bhuiyan was working. Instead of robbing the store, as Bhuiyan expected, Stroman asked where he was from, and then shot him in the face with a shotgun from 4 to 5 feet away.
At trial, the prosecution used a video surveillance tape to prove the murder of Patel was robbery-gone-wrong, making it a capital crime punishable by death.
Stroman had previous convictions for burglary, robbery, theft and credit card abuse for which he was sentenced to prison twice, and paroled in both cases, most recently in 1991.
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