Aug 9, 2012 No Comments ›› Pat Dollard
Excerpted from ATLAS SHRUGS: Attempted honor murderer Khalid Mohd had “threatened his wife earlier, making her wheelbarrow dirt from the front yard to fill a swimming pool in back of their Crestwood Avenue home and telling her he would kill her and bury her there.”
“Palakta man sentenced to life for burning wife who wanted to stay in U.S.”
Aug 8, 2012 Jacksonville.com (thanks to Philip)
PALATKA ? Sometimes clutching burn-scarred fingers to her face, Rema Jamel spoke softly in a video recording to say what she believed should happen to the husband who set her on fire.
To get tortured the same as I got tortured,? she said.
Prosecutors played the recording at Wednesday?s sentencing for Khalid Mohd, 41, who was convicted in June of setting his wife on fire because she wanted his help staying in the United States.
He was sentenced to life in prison.
Circuit Judge Patti A. Christensen said the act was a window into the man.
That tells me that person has no soul,? she said. Throughout the hearing, Mohd appeared smug and was often argumentative with the lead prosecutor and during the judge?s comments.
He had no respect for the American judicial system, prosecutor Jason Lewis said.
Mohd told police that Jamel, now 33, was burned in a March 2010 grilling accident and later said his wife had sprayed herself with charcoal fluid and set herself on fire. Their two school-age sons came into the house and saw ?yellow stuff? dripping from their burning mother’s body after hearing an argument between their parents.
Jamel spent five months in a Gainesville burn unit but eventually was able to tell police her side of the story, and Mohd was arrested on charges of attempted murder, aggravated battery and arson
Jamel wanted her husband’s help becoming a U.S. citizen, jurors were told during the trial. Mohd, who had lived in Florida for years, first Tampa then Palatka, refused.
Jamel and the couple’s sons, both born overseas, had not been in the country long and normally saw their father on his visits home. Mohd told Jamel she had to go back to Jordan and that he was going to keep their sons in Palatka. He wanted to bring a second wife from Jordan, where it is legal to have multiple wives, Lewis said. The couple argued and Mohd pulled the phone line from the wall when she threatened to call police, according to a police report. He sprayed her and threatened to kill her.
Mohd pushed her down and set her on fire.
