IN THE MORNING BEFORE THE START OF THE SECOND DAY OF the Jabbar trial, Karp sat at his desk across from Mahmoud Juma, a small brown man with dark, sad eyes. They’d met before during trial preparations, and he truly liked the man. He was the epitome of the promise of American Exceptionalism, the dream of living in a country in which morality, ethics, and human rights were institutionalized and codified. Not left to the whims of military despots and ayatollahs.
A simple Muslim fisherman from Kenya’s east coast, Juma had fled poverty, oppression, and the terrorism of Al Qaeda extremists to find a better life for himself and his teenage daughters. After arriving in America, he’d worked hard at whatever menial jobs he could find while insisting that his girls go to school, learn English, set goals, and become thoroughly American. And he had even higher goals for his grandson, Abdullah, the child of his murdered daughter, Miriam.
“I would like him to be a doctor, I think. Anything is possible in this country.”
As he spoke, the old man glanced over at the subject of their conversation, a toddler whom he’d brought with him to Karp’s office. The boy was busy looking at the books in Karp’s library and spinning a globe around on its base.
“I’ve been meaning to ask you,” Karp said. “Your English is very good.”
“Thank you, Mr. Karp,” Juma replied. He explained that when he was a boy, Christian missionaries from America had set up a school in the village a few miles from his own. His father had sent him to the school—walking the six or so miles there and back five days a week—believing that his son would someday need to be educated to navigate a changing world.
“I inherited the truth that education is the key to the future from my father,” Juma said. “I passed that to my girls, though some members of the Al-Aqsa mosque—those who think of women as chattel—did not like it.” The old man sighed. “My Miriam had dreams of going to college and becoming a teacher someday.”
With an effort, the old man steeled himself and quickly regained his composure, submitting, he would say, to the will of Allah. Dabbing quickly at a tear that had rolled down his cheek, he continued. “When we came here, I said we would speak English, even in the house, except around our dinner table, when we spoke the language of my father’s fathers. I did not want them to forget where they came from, but I wanted them to be Americans. And so it is now with Abdullah, too.”
One of the things Karp had wanted to talk to him about during this interview was the rumor that the Juma family and the relatives of some of the young men who’d been lured into Jabbar’s suicide brigade were seeking to avenge the death of Miriam. He wanted to avoid any sort of scene or even an attempt on Jabbar’s life in the courtroom.
“I want to discuss the concept of thar with you,” Karp said.
The old man stiffened slightly, and the smile on his face melted. “Thar is an ancient custom, what the Christian Bible calls ‘an eye for an eye,’” he said guardedly.
“That’s what I’ve been told,” Karp replied. “But I guess what I want to ask you is if you are seeking thar in the case of Imam Jabbar. Do you want to cause his death?”
Juma looked hard at Karp for a moment and then shrugged. “Perhaps something will happen to him, and my daughter will be avenged. I will rejoice if that happens.”
Karp ran his fingers through his hair and tried again. “Let me rephrase this. Are you going to try to kill Mr. Jabbar or have someone else kill him?”
The man remained silent but finally shook his head. “Because of what he did to my daughter and others, I hope he dies and goes to hell where he belongs. But no, Mr. Karp, I accept that I am a guest in this wonderful country, and I will abide by its laws and customs.” Juma reached across the desk with his hand extended. “You have my word as a man of Allah that I will not seek thar.”
Karp shook the offered hand. “That’s all I needed to know.”
Moving on, Karp asked Juma about Jabbar. He wanted to know as much as possible about the defendant on a personal level.
“Did you consider Imam Jabbar to be your spiritual advisor?”
Juma frowned. “He was the imam of the Al-Aqsa mosque and led the Namaz, the prayers, five times a day. On Friday mornings, he would give a sermon. But I did not think of him as my spiritual advisor.”
“Why not?”
“Because I do not believe that he is truly a man of God.”
“Why?”
“He does not understand that Islam is a religion of peace and of obedience to the will of Allah.”
“Did you attend his Friday sermons?”
“I attended a few when I first began to worship at the Al-Aqsa mosque, but after that, I stopped.”
“Was there a particular reason?”
“I believe it is the duty of the imam at Friday sermon to talk about the Koran or, perhaps, matters that are of spiritual importance to the community. But his sermons were always political and full of hate for white people and this country. They were not the words, or the intent, of the Prophet. The passages of the Koran he did talk about, he twisted and corrupted to fit his hatred. I fled Kenya because of men like that.”
“Did you ever confront Imam Jabbar about his politics?”
Juma nodded. “Yes. On several occasions, I told him that I believed he was corrupting the teachings of the Prophet and that Allah did not condone the murder of innocent people or encourage hatred of other people because of their skin color or where they lived.”
“And his response?”
“He said I should attend another mosque.”
“Why didn’t you?”
Juma sighed. “I wish now that I had. But the Al-Aqsa mosque was the only mosque within walking distance of my home. And he is just one man. There were many good Muslims who worshiped there—my friends and neighbors—and there were other scholars who know the Koran better than Jabbar. A mosque is supposed to be the center of the community. I wanted to be part of my community.”
Karp asked what Miriam had told Juma about her husband being recruited by Jabbar to join a cadre of young men at the mosque.
“She didn’t like it,” Juma answered. “He would return from these secret meetings with Jabbar and the other young men, talking about jihad and other crazy things. He claimed he was part of something that would make him and the others famous in the Muslim world.”
“Did you personally have any discussions with your son-in-law regarding Sharif Jabbar?” Karp asked.
“Yes, Jamal was talking one day about the Al Qaeda attack on the World Trade Center. He was jealous that the killers were famous and said that because of Jabbar, he and other young men from the mosque would be famous, too. I told him that such talk was crazy and against the teachings of the Prophet.”
“Why didn’t you tell the authorities?” Karp asked.
Juma hung his head. “I thought it was just big talk by young, hot-headed men and that they would eventually listen to older, wiser men. But they were seduced by the words of Jabbar and a desire for fame.”
“I understand that your daughter left her husband and came to live with you?”
“Yes. Several months before she was killed.”
“Did she say why she left her husband?”
“They were arguing a lot. She did not like his talk of violence and the word of Allah being corrupted to support the teachings of Imam Jabbar. She wanted Jamal to stop attending these secret meetings with Jabbar and the other young men. Then, one night he came home drunk on alcohol; they argued, and he struck her.” Recalling the incident, Juma’s voice hardened with anger. “She left him and came to live with me.”
“Did she ever say anything to you regarding her feelings about Jabbar?”
Juma nodded. “She did not like him for what he was doing to her husband.”
“But didn’t she work for Jabbar as a receptionist?”
“Yes. After her husband blew himself up at the synagogue and murdered those poor, innocent men, she needed a job, and Jabbar offered her one. She had a little boy to care for.”
“Were you aware that your daughter was working with federal law-enforcement authorities investigating Jabbar and others?”
“Yes, Mr. Karp.”
“Did she tell you what it was about?”
Juma shook his head. “No. She said she was giving them information, but she would not say what it was about. She said it was too dangerous for me to know.”
“Did there come a point when your daughter told you that she believed she was in danger?”
“Yes, Mr. Karp. She was very frightened.”
“Was she afraid of the federal agents? Or did she believe that the federal agents would harm her if she did not help them?”
“No, she told me she trusted them. Especially the man she played chess with. I believe his name was John.”
Karp paused. He hadn’t heard about the chess and would have to ask Jojola about it. “Did she say they had threatened her, or her family, including you, with deportation if she did not help them?”
“No, Mr. Karp.”
“Mr. Juma,” Karp asked gently, “when was the last time you saw your daughter Miriam?”
The question seemed to rock Juma, who wiped at his eyes. “The afternoon of the day she died.”
“Did she ask you to do something that day?”
“Yes, she asked me to take her son, Abdullah, to Chicago to stay with friends until the danger had passed.”
“Did she say where she was going?”
“Yes, to the mosque to worship. It was the first day of Ramadan.”
“Did she say any last words to you before she left?”
“Yes. She said, ‘No matter what happens here, we will meet again.’” The old man had to stop and take another sip of water. “In Paradise.”
“Did her words worry you?”
Juma nodded. “Yes, it sounded to me like she knew she might be harmed or . . . or killed. But she was at peace. Her guardian spirit, Hazrat Fatemah Masumeh, a Muslim saint, had appeared to her and told her that whatever happened, it was the will of Allah.”
“And you never saw her again?”
“Only once,” Juma said. A sob escaped him before he continued. “I saw her again at the morgue.” He covered his face with his hands and began to cry.
Karp waited patiently for Juma to pull himself together, which he did after several minutes. “I am sorry, Mr. Juma, to put you through this.”
“I understand,” the little man replied. “We are both seeking justice for Miriam. You ask me what you need to ask, and I will do my best to answer.”
Karp explained to Juma that in about an hour, he would be called to the witness stand. “But I will only ask you two questions of substance, not including background about you, which are necessary for us to make a legal case. The first is your father-daughter relationship with Miriam, which will be used to establish the basis for the second question, which is that you regrettably had to go to the morgue to identify your daughter. Please understand that in every murder case, there are basically two things that the People must establish beyond a reasonable doubt. The first is that the deceased is in fact dead, and the second is that the deceased died as a result of the criminal conduct of the defendant. You’re being asked to establish that your daughter is the deceased, which is presently not an issue, but we must prove it.”
“You don’t want me to tell the judge about how he recruited young men to murder innocent people?”
Karp shook his head and explained the legal prohibition against hearsay.
Juma looked puzzled. “I am confused. If it’s the truth, why must it be hidden?”
Karp smiled. “You make a good point. All I can say is that sometimes, in an effort to be more than fair to a man on trial, the truth must be weighed against an even more important duty. As Americans, we believe that freedom is so important that if we’re going to take it away from a man and put him in prison, then we have to give him every benefit of the doubt.”
“Guilty beyond a reasonable doubt,” Juma said. “I am learning all about the American justice system in my citizenship classes, Mr. Karp.”
“And I’m sure you’re an excellent student and will make a fine citizen.”
An hour later, Juma was called to the stand, where Karp began by asking background information, where he was from, when he had come to America, and how he had chosen the Al-Aqsa mosque.
“Because it was close to my home,” Juma replied.
Then he answered the two questions Karp had told him were necessary to prove the case. Yes, the body in the morque was that of his younger daughter, Miriam. And he had told that to the medical examiner that terrible day.
“Thank you, Mr. Juma,” Karp said as the old man stepped down from the witness stand.
“Salaam. You are very welcome, Mr. Karp.”
The remainder of the day was consumed by calling various crime-scene and forensic experts.
A crime-scene technician was called to identify a long, bloody knife found in the basement in the Al-Aqsa mosque. As were, he said, human teeth, fingernails, and a severed head discovered in a small room next to a larger room containing, among other things, the victim’s body, a large banner, and a video camera. Karp entered the plastic evidence bags containing the teeth and fingernails, as well as the camera and banner, into evidence.
On cross-examination, O’Dowd ascertained from the technician that there was no physical evidence tying her client to “the so-called torture room or the People’s latest exhibits.”
An Arab language expert also took the stand to translate the writing on the green banner found in the basement of the Al-Aqsa mosque, now People’s Exhibit fourteen. “It says, ‘In the name of Allah, the most gracious, the most merciful.’” He also testified that several photographs Karp showed him of Islamic terrorists shortly before the murder of hostages by decapitation in other countries, People’s Exhibits eighteen and nineteen, contained banners with the same slogan.
O’Dowd countered on cross-examination by getting the language expert to agree that it was a common saying “and could also simply be an inspirational banner for a mosque youth group that met in the basements on Wednesday afternoons.”
The last witness of the day was New York City assistant medical examiner Gail Manning. Karp had worked with Manning before and appreciated the professional yet warm demeanor of the silver-haired, blue-eyed AME in front of a jury. She would testify to a “reasonable degree of medical certainty” the cause and manner of death, highlighting the injuries Miriam had endured.
Manning began her testimony by identifying the teeth, fingernails, and severed head found in the smaller room and the body in the larger room as belonging to the deceased. The tougher part of her testimony, however, was describing the physical injuries of a young woman who had her fingers broken, the nails ripped from their beds with pliers, and the arches of her feet broken with a sledge hammer. Miriam also had puncture wounds inflicted by a small knife on various parts of her head and body.
“And she was beaten about the face with a blunt object and blinded in one eye before she died,” Manning said, her voice soft but deliberate. “Four teeth had been extracted . . . also with the use of pliers.”
Moving on, Manning testified that the cause of death was “the nearly total loss of blood caused by severing the carotid artery and jugular vein. All of the muscles and all of the structures of the neck, including the spinal cord, were also severed for complete decapitation.”
“Other than pain,” Karp said, looking now at each member of the panel, “what other uncomfortable sensations would the victim experience?”
“As blood from the wound entered her windpipe, there would have been the sensation of drowning,” the doctor replied.
“Drowning in her own blood,” Karp said.
“Yes, that’s right.”
On cross-examination, O’Dowd again had the witness agree with her point that there was no physical evidence linking Jabbar to the torture and murder of Miriam Juma Khalifa. “And is it true that it’s actually quite difficult to cut a head off a human being using a knife such as the one marked People’s Exhibit fifteen?”
“It’s harder than you would think,” Manning agreed, “depending, of course, on the size of the muscles and the neck and the sharpness of the blade.”
“Is that the sort of thing a middle-aged woman could do easily?” O’Dowd asked.
Manning shrugged. “If she was strong, she could do it. But it does take quite a bit of tough sawing, especially if the victim is living and conscious and therefore bound to move and react.”
“Would it more likely take a bigger, stronger man to accomplish?” O’Dowd asked.
“I don’t know if ‘more likely’ is the way to put it,” Manning replied. “The bigger and stronger of either sex would have an easier time severing a human head from the body. I don’t think gender has anything to do with it.”
If she was strong, she could do it. The thought reverberated in Karp’s brain. Nadya Malovo is certainly strong enough, he thought. And ruthless enough. Is there anything she wouldn’t kill with pleasure if she was paid enough? He wondered where the Russian assassin was and, having killed Crawford, how she planned to follow through on any plans to assassinate Newbury, who would be testifying in a matter of days.
And there was the matter of the threat to his family. Fulton’s men had it covered—at least, as best as could be expected against a trained killer like the beautiful but deadly Nadya Malovo.