13th of May 2008 /

Prosecution rests case in Seattle federation shootings

By Janis Siegel

Prosecutors in Seattle April 30 wrapped up their case against the Muslim-American man charged in the July 28, 2006, shooting rampage inside the offices of the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle.

Naveed Afzal Haq, 32, is charged in the murder of federation employee Pamela Waechter and the wounding of five other women in the same incident.

As the prosecution came to a close the jury saw the two pistols that witnesses testified Haq used, heard recordings of terrified 911 calls from people inside the federation offices at the time of the shootings, viewed the clothing worn by Waechter on the day she was killed, and listened to a computer expert detail hundreds of Internet searches Haq made in the days leading up to the shootings.

One week prior to the shootings Haq spent early mornings and late nights searching hundreds of Web addresses that included scores of pornography sites, the American Israel Public  Affair Committee sites, Muslim and Middle East news sites and Jews in Congress, according to courtroom testimony.

Seattle Police Detective Thomas Luckie, a computer forensic expert, testified that the searches on Haq’s computer on the day before the shootings were initially broad but then became targeted.

“On July 27, 2006, he searched CNN specials and the Mideast crisis,” Luckie testified. “He searched the Iraq War, the situation in the Middle East and Pakistan missile technology.”

Between July 23 and July 26, 2006, Haq’s search records also showed that he inquired about Hezbollah and eventually focused on AIPAC seminars in Seattle and around the United States.

Haq reportedly told police in a precinct interview after the shootings that he originally thought he would attack an AIPAC event, but he changed his mind because he believed it would be too complicated. A judge in the case suppressed the report of that conversation.

Finally settling on the downtown Seattle Jewish philanthropic agency, Haq downloaded directions to its front door from MapQuest, traveled 227 miles from eastern Washington to Seattle, and waited in the federation’s unlocked foyer until 14-year-old Kelsey Burkum showed up.

That’s when he put a gun to her back, told her to be careful as she entered the security code. Once through the door, the two climbed the stairs to the second floor, where Haq reportedly asked for a manager and began to shoot.

Prosecutor Donald Raz focused the court’s attention on a computer text file named KUTBAH.doc found by Detective Luckie and said to be written by Haq. It was titled “The Sources of Muslim Anger.”

In a khutbah, the Arabic word for a special teaching or sermon, Haq wrote prolifically and clearly about the plight of Muslims throughout the world, according to Luckie. He sympathized with Jews who have suffered under persecution, but wanted Muslims to better themselves and gain more power in the world.

“If things don’t change there will be a very bloody future,” Raz quoted from the document. “Jews are over-represented in American politics. Muslims are excluded.”

As the trial moved to the defense phase, Haq’s attorneys were expected to call several doctors to testify that Haq has suffered from mental illness for more than a decade—an effort to persuade the court to accept the premise that he was insane at the time of the shootings.

Haq has been found competent and able to stand trial.

To establish insanity, the defense must prove that their client could not distinguish between right and wrong and could not form the intent to plan his crime, according to Washington law.

Haq suffers from diagnosed bi-polar disorder and schizoaffective disorder, according to a psychiatrist who treated him in the 1990s for depression and attempted suicide at the University of Pennsylvania where he was a dental student.

Dr. Alexandra McLean testified out of sequence on April 28 due to her schedule. Later that the day Judge Paris K. Kallas ruled her testimony inadmissible due to more recent diagnoses from Haq’s doctors.

“I diagnosed him with schizoaffective disorder,” McLean told the court. “He was still angry, crying, persecuted.”

McLean also said that Haq reported being “put off” from his family and that he felt he was pressured to go to dental school.

Almost immediately after the shooting, Haq’s computers, weapons, ammunition, letters to his brother and other items of evidence were seized from his Kennewick, Wash., apartment and the room he occupied in his parent’s home.

Detectives also found seven prescription medications in his apartment.

Seattle Homicide Detective Alan Cruise, one of the team of investigators who flew to the residences the morning after the shootings, also testified on April 28 that Haq’s apartment was almost empty.

“It looked like someone was either moving in or moving out,” Cruise told the court. “We found a knife, a shotgun box and shotgun with some sort of strap tied to it, and a Remington 870 shotgun manual.

“There was no bed, a laptop, a factory box to a pistol, a Ruger, a receipt for a Ruger, and ammunition.”

The defense objected to the jury hearing certain incriminating statements Haq reportedly made to police after his arrest, as well as those he made during state-ordered interviews with doctors who evaluated his mental health.

As of April 30 Kallas had not yet ruled on the admissibility of testimony from the state’s medical expert because he is relying on some of those statements to form his opinion.

However, comments Haq voluntarily made to police during transport and before his request for a lawyer were allowed.

On April 30, the defense began its case with testimony from Haq’s mother, who talked about her son’s descent into his mental illness.