Thursday, July 21, 2011 – A Texas man who went on the rampage after the 9/11 attacks has been executed for killing two shop workers in what he claimed was revenge for the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
He claimed one of his sisters had perished in the World Trade Centre when al Qaeda operatives hijacked planes and flew them into the twin towers in New York.
Prosecutors in Texas were sceptical of his claim. They say there was never any proof his sibling even existed and that robbery, not revenge, was his motive.
Mark Stroman, 41, died by lethal injection despite last-minute representations by his lawyer at the US Supreme Court.
In his final weeks Stroman’s plea for clemency was backed by Rais Bhuiyan, who was shot but survived.
Mr Bhuiyan had said that killing Stroman was “not the solution”.
The execution at Huntsville prison was delayed slightly by the final legal appeals, before Stroman was taken to the death chamber.
He said, “Even though I lay on this gurney, seconds away from my death, I am at total peace.”
“God bless America. God bless everyone,” he said. “Let’s do this damn thing.”
Stroman was pronounced dead at 2053 CDT (0153 GMT).
While spaking with BBC, Mr Bhuiyan, 37, said Stroman was guilty of “hate crime”, but warned that his death would not achieve anything.
Mr. Bhuiyan also said, “His execution will not eradicate hate crimes from this world. We will just simply lose another human life.”
So far at least eight have been executed in Texas including Stroman’s execution in 2011.
They cited the “significant surprise” of Mr Bhuiyan’s support, and argued that Stroman’s path to “this violent frenzy” was not made clear by defence lawyers during earlier trials and appeals.
Stroman admitted the killings, saying he was motivated by anger at the 9/11 attacks and wanted to take revenge on Muslims – or people who resembled Muslims.
“I had some poor upbringing and I grabbed a hold of some ideas which was ignorance, you know, and hate is pure ignorance. I no longer want to be like hate, I want to be like me,” he said.
Besides Patel’s slaying, Stroman was charged but not tried in the shooting death of Waqar Hasan, 46, a Pakistani immigrant who moved to Dallas in 2001 to open a convenience store. Hasan was killed four days after the terrorists struck. The attack on Bhuiyan came a week later.
