Mistrial for Naveed Haq for shootings at Greater Seattle Jewish Federation

By Andrew Cochran

This was co-authored by counterterrorism researcher Timothy Thompson, who followed the Haq trial closely.

The facts were never in dispute at his trial in Seattle, Washington: Naveed Haq, 32, killed one woman, wounded five others, and kidnapped a teenage girl at gunpoint on July 28, 2006 in his shooting rampage at the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle. The jury’s task was always to determine Haq’s level of legal culpability in light of his chronic mental illness. Prosecutors, in fact, explicitly cited Haq’s mental instability in taking the death penalty off the table on the most serious charge of aggravated first-degree murder. If convicted of that charge, Haq faced a mandatory sentence of life in prison without parole.

Haq’s attorneys argued that Haq believed he was on a mission from God, sent to take action to influence the course of wars in Iraq and Lebanon. Haq took the telephone to speak with 911 emergency operators during the rampage and ranted at length about his dissatisfaction with Jews, Israel and the persecution of Muslims. Haq told the operator, "I want these Jews to get out." The defense introduced evidence that Haq took numerous psychotropic medications, nearly all with serious side effects, and behaved bizarrely on many occasions in the years previous to the shootings.

King County Superior Court Judge Paris Kallas declared a mistrial yesterday when the jury reported it was hopelessly deadlocked on 14 of 15 counts after eight days of deliberation. This followed repeated requests from the jury for the Judge to give "further instruction on the definition and criteria for insanity" under Washington State law. Attorneys for both sides agreed that Judge Kallas could only repeat her previous instructions. The King County Prosecutor immediately told reporters that his office plans to retry Haq this year.

Counterterrorism experts have watched the Haq trial closely. Intriguing to them is the way both prosecutors and defense attorneys skirted Naveed Haq’s Pakistani origin and Muslim faith. Prosecutors maintained that the state need only prove that Haq acted with premeditation in the shootings and that his actions constituted a hate crime based on the victims' Jewish religion or ethnicity; whether or not the root cause of the premeditation or hate was his Islamic background was completely irrelevant in the eyes of the law. Haq's defense attorney introduced evidence that Haq had converted to Christianity and attended Christian services, and framed this as clear evidence that Haq’s action were the result of insanity rather than Islam.

Also of interest are Haq’s finances. Washington State supported the “unemployable” Haq on public assistance. Haq, purportedly indigent at the time, nevertheless purchased two handguns, ammunition and accessories for more than $1000 in cash. What were the sources of his funds? No such evidence was introduced at the trial since it was beyond the scope of the charges, and it was apparent that the source of the funds was outside the scope of the investigation.

Perhaps most intriguing is the idea that what looks to counterterrorists like an ordinary act of jihad - shooting six Jews while raging about Israel - could become an act of insanity under American law. The retrial of Naveed Haq will again center on one and only one question: Does the degree of Haq’s mental illness at the time of massacre of July 28, 2006 support a finding of insanity under Washington State law? Counterterrorists risk reading too broad an implication in what is actually a very narrow question, in one single case, with unique and exceptional circumstances. But the Haq mistrial could represent a roadmap for terrorists to use to escape prosecution through legally defined "insanity," and law enforcement and intelligence agencies should prepare for this precedent.

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