Akbar military murder trial David Bash

April 11, 2005 John Akbar’s son, Sgt. Hasan Karim Akbar, joined the U.S. Army to serve his country and earn financial aid to pursue his masters degree in engineering. What he got is two criminal counts of first degree premeditated murder and 14 counts of premeditated attempted murder of other soldiers. “I’m just trying to seek justice for my son. Something happened to drive him to that point. I just want to tell our story,” said John Akbar when he traveled to Seattle last week and contacted the Seattle Medium Newspaper. In March 2003, the U.S. Army charged Sgt. Akbar with throwing three grenades and opening fire with an M-4 assault rifle, killing two and wounding as many as 17 (accounts vary) other U.S. soldiers at a military base near the Iraqi border four days after the start of the Iraq war. Akbar, a combat engineer with the 101st Airborne Division’s 326th Engineer Battalion at the time of the incident, now faces capital murder charges accusing him of killing two officers, one Army and one Air Force, and three counts of attempted premeditated murder in the grenade and machinegun attack in a Kuwait rear-base headquarters during those first days of the Iraq war. The trial, which is expected to last up to four weeks, began Monday in Fort Bragg, N.C. and if convicted on all murder and attempted murder charges Akbar could face the death penalty. The issue of mental stability is expected to be at the heart of the court-martial of Army Sgt. Hasan Akbar, the first soldier tried for murder in the death of another soldier in wartime since the Vietnam era. Defense attorney Major Dan Brookhart told the court-martial jury that Sgt. Akbar has suffered from mental illness for more than 15 years due to the sexual abuse of his sister by his stepfather. “I fear my son will not have a jury of peers,” said the sergeant’s natural father, John Akbar. Sgt. Akbar requested a jury made up of officers and enlisted personnel. However, all jurors must outrank the person on trial. Akbar’s jury will consists of nine officers, with ranks from colonel to major, and six non-commissioned officers, all senior sergeants who outrank Akbar. There are 13 men and two women. Three jurors are black, eight are white, and the four others are of other racial backgrounds. The defense plans to use an insanity or diminished capacity defense against the charges in the capital military trial, according to his father and recent press reports. A military doctor recently found the sergeant was competent to stand trial. “My son has always been a good Muslim. Hasan was raised in a loving family home and never had any problems with the police,” said the 63 year-old retired contractor and divorced father of a Muslim wife and five Muslim children. But newspapers covering this infamous story across the country have reported that Hasan Karim Akbar was seeing a psychiatrist as early as 14-years-old. In this exclusive interview, the distraught father said that he was a follower of Elijah Muhammad’s Nation of Islam when his five children were born but has since returned to Christianity. “I regret taking Hasan (Sgt.Akbar) to Islam today,” he said. According to college records, Sgt. Akbar double majored in aeronautical and mechanical engineering and graduated with a bachelor’s degree from the University of California-Davis. His son joined the army for the educational loan benefits, the father said, but admitted to his family before he went to Iraq that he had “problems with killing Muslims.” Hasan said that he was placed in an all-white platoon and alleged that they regularly “mocked” him at prayer times (five times a day for Muslims), that white soldiers displayed racist tattoos and regularly assailed him with racist remarks, and that his complaints were ignored, his father said “Why was my son put in an all-white platoon, aren’t there any brothers in the army?” the father complained. According to the U.S. Army web site the African American enlistment approximates the Black U.S. population, but according to other internet sources the U.S. military enlisted 31% of its soldiers from southern states in1980 and up as much as 42% in 2000. In documents obtained from his father, his son showed signs of confusion and mental deterioration prior to the tragic events in Kuwait because of his mental conflict with being a Muslim and training to kill other Muslims. And he continued to show signs of marked functional impairment in the military. And according to other press reports his behaviors were odd and worrisome to his fellow soldiers, Several of Sgt. Akbar’s superiors expressed concerns about taking him to Iraq, according to the documents provided by the father, and he was repeatedly found to be “incompetent” by his superiors. But the father is confused that no one took steps to take this “incompetent” soldier out of harms way – or to protect other’s from his incompetence. “As a father seeking justice, I want all of these things thoroughly investigated,” he said