Beheading trial: Kids said their accused father was abusive

Muzzamil Hassan was an abusive and intimidating man, his children told a jury Wednesday during testimony in Hassan's murder trial in Buffalo, N.Y.

Hassan is accused of killing and beheading his wife, Aasiya, in 2009 at the offices of the Muslim television station they owned -- just six days after she filed divorce papers, television station WIVB reported.

Hassan's son, Michael, told the court about how he and his sister waited in the car at the station's parking lot while Aasiya went in to drop off clean clothing to Hassan. She never came out.

Hassan's daughter, Sonia, testified about how, in 2008, she once saw Aasiya "covered in blood, so much blood."

Neither child has talked to their father since the killing, but Sonia testified that her father promised her everything he possessed if she followed certain conditions, including not speaking ill of him at trial, WIVB reported.

The children's babysitter testified that in 2006 she once saw Hassan drag Aasiya across their driveway so that she couldn't get in her car following a fight, WIVB reported.

-- Lance Murray

Comments

[Notch Johnson]

So he cuts people's heads off? Well, it's a toss-up, but yeah, I'd say that's abusive.