Muzzammil S. “Mo” Hassan today calmly said he “kind of blacked out” as he repeatedly stabbed and beheaded his estranged wife two years ago.
Hassan, 46, took the stand to be cross-examined by prosecutor Colleen Curtin-Gable after four days of direct testimony in his murder trial before Erie County Judge Thomas P. Franczyk. Under questioning from Curtin Gable, Hassan said: “I don’t have much recollection of the whole thing.”
Hassan has been in jail since he surrendered about an hour after he killed his wife Aasiya Z. Hassan, 37 on Feb. 12, 2009, six days after she began divorce proceedings to end their marriage.
As Hassan’s cross-examination began about 10:40 a.m. he didn’t dispute his actions but took issue with the prosecutor’s contention that he began the fatal attack in the unlit hallway of the couple’s cable television station from behind. He said he and his wife were talking when the incident began.
He has acted as his own attorney since last week, with his former defense lawyer Jeremy Schwartz serving as an adviser. During his final day of testimony Tuesday afternoon, Hassan described the attack on his wife by saying God “was making it [him] do it.”
Today Curtin Gable, the chief prosecutor in the case, sarcastically reminded Hassan that during his four days of addressing the jury “you only spent about two seconds on the murder itself.”
Hassan insisted, calmly that “I kind of blacked out. The whole thing happened so fast I don’t remember any of it.”
Hassan claimed he discarded the two razor-sharp hunting knives he used in the attack -- claiming he did so because he believed Aasiya was pulling out of her coat pocket a kitchen knife she had threatened him with hours earlier -- because he feared “touching things like that.”
In response to the prosecutor’s questions Hassan today told the jury he took off his blood-stained shirt after the fatal attack “because I was hot.”
Hassan today insisted all his actions during the fatal incident were carried out “in defending myself” from his allegedly abusive spouse.
“I know I did it but it’s like watching a movie” to talk about the incident, he told the jury.
The cross-examination began after Franczyk insisted he give only “responsive” and brief answers to prosecution questions and refrain from the long comments he made during his four days of direct testimony to the jury.