In this undated photo provided by the U.S. Army in Little Rock, Ark., Tuesday, June 2, 2009, Pvt. William Long, 23, of Conway, Ark., is shown Friday, May 15, 2009. Long was killed outside an Army-Navy Career Center in a west Little Rock shopping center on Monday, June 1. (AP Photo/U.S. Army)
"LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) - A Muslim convert charged in the killing of a soldier at a recruiting center in Arkansas says he didn't consider it murder because U.S. military action in the Middle East made the killing justified.
Abdulhakim Muhammad told The Associated Press Tuesday in Little Rock that he confessed to police that he killed Pvt. William Long outside an Army-Navy recruiting center.
But he said murder exists only "without a justified reason."
In a collect call from jail, the 23-year-old man said he didn't specifically plan the June 1 shootings but that they had been on his mind for awhile.
He disputed his lawyer's claim that he had been "radicalized" in a prison in Yemen. "
Of course NPR tries to paint a sympathetic picture of this terrorist.
FBI Encountered Accused Ark. Shooter In Yemen
*snip*
That said, FBI officials do think Muhammad was radicalized in Yemen, and conversations Muhammad had with his lawyer seem to bear that out. Hensley says his client saw things in Yemen that upset him — things that changed him. And while Hensley stopped short of providing a motive for the shooting, he did say that Muhammad came back from Yemen very angry at the U.S. military.
Hensley says Muhammad told him he was working with children in Yemen and many of them were refugees from Afghanistan.
"Some of them are missing arms and some of them are terribly disfigured," Hensley says.
Muhammad told his lawyer that he blamed the U.S. military for the children's suffering. Muhammad also said he met Afghan women who claimed to have been raped by U.S. soldiers. This also clearly rankled him, Hensley says.
There is some debate over why, exactly, Muhammad ended up behind bars in Yemen. His parents say he told them that he was in for visa violations. Law enforcement officials said it was more than that but declined to be specific. What is certain is that prison added to the disillusionment Muhammad was already feeling toward the U.S.
"For whatever reason, he winds up in a prison in Yemen around people who certainly don't appreciate America," Hensley says. "And they start telling him, 'Look what you have seen; look what's going on.' And all this stuff weighs heavy on a young man, and he wants to do something."
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