Hasan Akbar

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Sgt. Hasan Akbar, center, is escorted out of the Judge Advocate's office at Fort Bragg, N.C.

Hasan Karim Akbar (born Mark Fidel Kools, c. 1971) is an African American and Muslim convert from Los Angeles, California. He was convicted and sentenced to death for the murder of two fellow soldiers during the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, while he was a U.S. Army soldier with the 101st Airborne, 326th Engineer Battalion.^[1]

1 Upbringing
2 Grenade attack in Kuwait
3 Defense
4 Possible motives
5 Verdict
6 References
7 References

[edit] Upbringing

Akbar was born Mark Fidel Kools in the Watts, Los Angeles. At some undetermined point in his childhood, his mother remarried and converted to Islam and changed his name to "Hasan Akbar".^[2]

He studied at the University of California, Davis taking a double major in aeronautical and mechanical engineering, and graduating with a bachelor's degree. After joining the United States Army, he was assigned to Alpha Company, 326th Engineer Battalion of the 101st Airborne, assigned to remove mines and was eventually deployed to Kuwait.

[edit] Grenade attack in Kuwait

Akbar was charged in a hand grenade and shooting attack that killed two U.S. officers and wounded 14 soldiers on March 23, 2003. The attack took place at Camp Pennsylvania, Kuwait, a rear base camp for the invasion where Akbar threw hand grenades into a tent during early morning when the majority of troops were sleeping and fired his rifle into the ensuing chaos. News reports at the time claimed that Akbar had been recently reprimanded for insubordination and was told he would not join his unit's push into Iraq.

In a diary entry dated February 4, 2003, Akbar referred to mistreatment by his fellow soldiers:

I suppose they want to punk me or just humiliate me. Perhaps they feel that I will not do anything about that. They are right about that. I am not going to do anything about it as long as I stay here. But as soon as I am in Iraq, I am going to try and kill as many of them as possible.

Prosecutors alleged that his diary entries and his actions (stealing hand grenades and turning off the generator that lit the camp) showed that the attack was premeditated. One diary entry dated 1997 said "My life will not be complete unless America is destroyed."

[edit] Defense

Although Akbar confessed to the crimes, his lawyers claimed that he had a history of mental illness which was known to the military. During jury selection, the defense lawyers were said to favor jurors who have had experience dealing with mental illness^{[citation needed]}. Akbar also suffers from sleep apnea and fell asleep several times during court proceedings.

He was tried in Fort Bragg, North Carolina in front of a military jury of nine officers, with ranks from major to colonel, and six senior sergeants. There were 13 men and two women on the jury.

[edit] Possible motives

Military officials for the most part did not believe his religious beliefs had anything to do with the attack. Conservative journalists tended to attribute his actions to a supposed allegiance to extremist Islam; liberal journalists tended to propose that Akbar had simply snapped from the stress of constant racial and religious harassment.

Akbar's mother, Quran Bilal, did tell reporters that she believed intolerance for his race and his Muslim faith created tensions within his unit as it prepared to invade a Muslim country.^[2] Akbar's father has said that his son was the only African American and only Muslim in his company, the other members of which subjected him to constant harassment.^[3]

Akbar himself reportedly said, just moments after his arrest, "You guys are coming into our countries, and you're going to rape our women and kill our children."^[3]

[edit] Verdict

On April 21, 2005 he was found guilty of two counts of premeditated murder (of Army Capt. Christopher Seifert, 27, who was shot in the back, and Air Force Maj. Gregory Stone, 40, struck by shrapnel) and three counts of attempted premeditated murder.

On April 28, 2005, after about seven hours of deliberation, Akbar was sentenced to death. The sentence will be reviewed by a commanding officer and automatically appealed. If Akbar is executed it would be by lethal injection.

On November 20, 2006 Lieutenant General John Vines, commander of the 18th Airborne Corps, affirmed the death sentence against Akbar. The case now goes to the Army Court of Criminal Appeals under an automatic appeal.

Since the Vietnam War, Akbar is the first U.S. soldier to be charged with the murder of another soldier during wartime, and the second soldier since the Vietnam War to be given the death penalty for killing a fellow soldier, though William Kreutzer Jr.'s sentence was commuted to life.

The last U.S. military execution was that of John A. Bennett in 1961.