07/11/2009
Fort Hood gunman's family: America made him what he is
By Reuters
The grandfather of a U.S. Army psychiatrist accused of shooting dead 13 people and wounding 30 others at a base in Texas said on Saturday he found it impossible to believe his grandson had committed the act.
"He is a doctor and loves the U.S.," Ismail Mustafa Hamad said in an interview at his home in the Palestinian town of al-Bireh. "America made him what he is."
U.S.-born Major Nidal Malik Hasan, 39, the son of immigrant parents, was shot during the attack and is being held at a hospital in San Antonio, Texas.
"Whether he became angry or something else, I don't know... What I do know is that it is impossible that he would do something like that," Hamad, 88, said.
Hasan, who had spent years counseling wounded soldiers, many of whom had lost limbs fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, last visited him in the West Bank some 10 years ago. Hamad said he had since visited his grandson in the United States.
Hamad appeared to rule out a political motive.
Hamad said his nephew was harassed by other soldiers because of his Muslim faith but that he was not angry.
Another cousin, Mohammed Hasan from al-Bireh, said the shooting may have been motivated by what he said was the U.S. Army's refusal to allow him to leave the armed forces.
"About a week before the incident, he hired a lawyer in order to leave the army, get married and live his life. But they rejected his request, and asked him to go to Afghanistan.
"This was the biggest shock for him. So there is another reason why he did what he did, not just because of the harassment of the soldiers, there is another reason," Mohammed Hasan said.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1126442.html
