Killer Of Soldier At Arkansas Recruiting Station: "This Was A Jihadi Attack" That Was "Justified According To Islamic Laws"

CNN reports that the Tennessee man to be tried for the fatal attack at a military recruiting center in Arkansas in June "wants to plead guilty and claims to have ties to al Qaeda in Yemen in a letter he wrote to the judge presiding over his case. In the handwritten letter dated January 12, Abdul Hakim Muhammad said he did not want a trial and insisted the shooting was 'justified' under jihad. 'This was a jihadi attack on infidel forces that didn't go as plan,' he wrote. 'Flat out truth.' It was not immediately clear whether the judge, Herbert Wright Jr., would accept the plea."

CNN reports that Muhammad's lawyer, Claiborne Ferguson, called the letter "highly inappropriate" saying his Islamoterrorist client "is misguided and misinformed as to Arkansas law" as he "can't plead guilty to a capital crime." CNN reports that before "pleading not guilty, Muhammad waived his Miranda rights and gave a video statement indicating political and religious motives, authorities said. He 'stated that he was a practicing Muslim ... that he was mad at the U.S. military because of what they had done to Muslims in the past,' Detective Tommy Hudson wrote in a police report at the time. Muhammad told police 'he fired several rounds at the soldiers with the intent of killing them,' according to Hudson's report. In his letter to the judge, Muhammad claimed he had links to al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula in Yemen, a group that has claimed responsibility for the attempting bombing of a U.S.-bound airliner on Christmas Day. 'My lawyer has no defense,' he wrote. 'I wasn't insane or post traumatic nor was I forced to do this act. Which I believe and it is justified according to Islamic laws and the Islamic religion jihad -- to fight those who wage war on Islam and Muslims.'"

The New York Times reports that "Mr. Muhammad, 24, a Muslim convert from Memphis, spent about 16 months in Yemen starting in the fall of 2007, ostensibly teaching English and learning Arabic. During that time, he married a woman from south Yemen. But he was also imprisoned for several months because he overstayed his visa and was holding a fraudulent Somali passport, the Yemen government said. Under pressure from the United States government, Yemen deported Mr. Muhammad in late January 2009. But just four months after his return, Mr. Muhammad used a semiautomatic rifle to gun down two soldiers — Pvt. William A. Long and Pvt. Quinton Ezeagwula — while they were standing outside a military recruiting station in Little Rock, killing Private Long and wounding Private Ezeagwula. After the shooting, Mr. Muhammad pleaded not guilty, but also took responsibility for the shootings in interviews with The Associated Press. But he did not acknowledge being part of an extremist group and some terrorism experts came to view him as a self-radicalized, lone actor. In his letter to Herb Wright Jr., a Pulaski County circuit judge, Mr. Muhammad calls himself a member of 'Abu Basir’s Army,' an apparent reference to Naser Abdel-Karim al-Wahishi, the Yemen group’s leader, who also goes by the name Abu Basir." Tweet