A few neighbors’ sympathy with a 19-year-old Pakistani arrested last month for killing his abusive father in Brooklyn, apparently on the spur of the moment, has snowballed into a mass petition signed by 1,500-odd people from across the United States, asking for lesser or no punishment after prosecutors last week charged the young man with murder that can potentially put him behind bars for 25 years.
Hassan Razzaq, 19, now faces up to 25 years in prison if convicted in the stabbing attack last month in which his 56-year-old father Mohammad Razzaq, died, the New York Post said in a report July 31.
The teen, wearing a bandage on his right arm, appeared dejected in Brooklyn Supreme Court as the charges were announced, the report said, adding that more than 50 family and friends were in the gallery. Many burst into tears.
“They’re shocked. Anyone that hears ‘murder’ is going to be shocked,” said his lawyer, Michael Cibella. “We’re disappointed, but it’s not unexpected that the indictment was handed down,” he was quoted as saying.
Razzaq allegedly plunged a knife in his father’s throat at their Kensington home July 18. The senior Razzaq had just returned early from a months-long stay in Pakistan and subjected Hassan and Hassan’s 15-year-old sister to hours of abuse, Cibella said.
“There’s a lot more to this story that needs to be brought out,” the lawyer said.
In a telltale sign of sympathy for the accused neighbors and friends of Razzaq’s family called the lawyer offering to help if and when a bail amount is given.
An earlier Post report said neighbors expressed sympathy for the 19-year-old in Kensington neighborhood where the slain father lived with his wife and five children for years.
Neighbors said that Razzaq, 56, was abusing his wife and children for years. One neighbor, identified by Post as Robert Micari who lives directly across the street from the apartment the Razzaq family lived, said that he went to his neighbor’s apartment a few months ago and told the senior Razzaq to stop abusing his family, or else he would report the matter to police.
Police said, according to news reports, that Razzaq and his son Hassan allegedly were engaged in a bitter argument at about 10
p.m. on July 18. Police officers arrived at their apartment to find Razzaq dead on the floor. Police tracked his injured and bleeding son to a neighborhood bodega where they arrested him.
In the mass petition posted on change.org more than 1,500 people asked the prosecutors not to bring second-degree murder charges against the young man. Hassan should not be facing second degree murder charges.
“I’m signing (this petition) because this young boy should not be sentenced to a life in prison after living a life of hell for the past 19 years. Why torture the kid who saved his family from a sadistic father,” one Dafina Cahani wrote.
Another person Ahmed Elnagdy of Staten Island said: “Because what he did is understandable, and he has a whole life ahead of him! This 9charge) is ridiculous.”
The Brooklyn District Attorney’s Office said July 31 that it was weighing whether the charges were appropriate, the New York Post said.
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