8 months ago
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Jim Hensley has the reputation of taking cases some consider impossible to win. Friday, he took the defense of a man accused of crimes Hensley say might not be his fault.
"He said there were some things that happened. He didn't want to say because he was embarrassed," Hensley said. He said they deprived him of food, sleep, slapped him around and threatened my life."
It's the picture Hensley paints of life in the Middle East for his new client, Abdulhakim Muhammad, the man accused of gunning down two U.S. Army Privates on June 1. Pvt. William Long died after the shooting.
"(Muhammad) is just a young man," Hensley said. "He played football, washed his grandmother's car. He had a close family, raised middle class."
A middle class kid who converted to Islam and changed his name from Carl Bledsoe in 2006. He then traveled to Yemen where he taught English to children.
"And then some of the kids, Afgan refugees showed up," Hensley said. "The were disfigured and wounded."
It was a sight Hensley said changed his client.
After overstaying his visa, Muhammad went to a Yemeni prison for several months where Hensley says he was tortured and brainwashed into possibly revolting against the U.S. government with deadly force.
"I don't think there's any question he was brainwashed," Hensley said. "It had to happen over in Yemen because he wasn't exposed to that stuff and certainly it didn't appear he had it before he went in to the prison."
In a statement to the Associated Press, Mohammed Albasha said Abdulhakim Muhammed "was not subjected to torture that has driven him to become a terrorist."
Hensley also blames leaked evidence from investigators for continuing to enrage the public against his client.
"The only reason they do that is to enflame the public against my client," Hensley said. "It does not help, and I wish they'd quit it. If they have evidence, then put it in the documents and file the charges against my client."
Hensley refutes the claims that Muhammad said he'd have killed more if given the chance and that he was connected to a Columbus, Ohio, mosque also with terrorist ties.
Hensley went on to say that Muhammad intends on releasing a statement from prison, possibly within the next three weeks.
Pulaski County Prosecutor Larry Jegley late Friday announced he intends to seek a gag order in the case.
