Seattle Jihadi Murderer Gets Mistrial
Wed, Jun 4, 2008 at 8:50:06 pm PDT
Enraged by the Lebanon War in 2006, Naveed Haq burst into a Jewish center and started shooting people while screaming “Death to the Jews!”
But that wasn’t enough to satisfy a Seattle jury that he was guilty. Mistrial for man who shot 6 at Jewish center.
SEATTLE, Washington (AP) — A judge declared a mistrial Wednesday in the case of a man who stormed into a Jewish center two years ago and shot six women, killing one, as he ranted against Israel and the Iraq war.
Naveed Haq stormed into a Jewish center two years ago and shot six women, killing one.
Jurors had indicated in questions posed to the judge that they were hopelessly deadlocked and struggling to determine whether Naveed Haq, 32, was not guilty by reason of insanity, as he claimed.
King County Superior Court Judge Paris Kallas ended the jury’s deliberations in their eighth day.
The jurors reached a partial verdict on only one of the 15 counts against Haq, finding him not guilty of attempted first-degree murder of one of the women. But they couldn’t agree on the lesser charge of attempted second-degree murder or any of the other 14 charges, which included murder.
Haq held a teenage girl at gunpoint to force his way into the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle on July 28, 2006. Once in the second-floor office, he began railing against U.S. policies and opened fire when someone tried to call 911. He shot some people in their cubicles, some in the hall and one, Pamela Waechter, fatally as she fled down a stairwell.
An emergency operator eventually persuaded him to surrender.
Prosecutors quickly announced that they hope to retry Haq this year, and representatives of the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle expressed their disappointment at the mistrial.
“There is no argument Haq killed Pam. There is no argument he viciously shot five others. There is no argument that he made anti-Israel and anti-Semitic statements. Somehow, all this was not enough,” Jewish Federation President Richard Fruchter said.
