By Janis Siegel, JTNews Correspondent
Prosecutors wrapped up their case against Naveed Haq on Wednesday for the 2006 shooting at the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle, but not before the jury saw his guns, listened to terrified 911 calls from people inside the building that day, were shown the clothing of the woman who died, and heard a computer expert detail hundreds of Google searches Haq had made in the days leading up to the shooting.
One week before the murder of Pamela Waechter and the shooting of five other women, Haq spent early mornings and late nights searching hundreds of Web addresses that included scores of pornography sites, American Israel Political Action Committee (AIPAC) sites, Muslim and Middle East news sites, and sites of Jews in Congress and the House of Representatives, among others.
According to testimony from Seattle Police Detective Thomas Luckie, a computer forensics expert, the searches on the day before the shootings were initially broad, but over time became more targeted.
“On July 27, 2006, [Haq] searched CNN specials and the Mid-East crisis,” Luckie testified. “He searched the Iraq War, the situation in the Middle East, and Pakistan missile technology.”
Haq’s search records from between July 23 and July 26 of that year also showed that he performed queries about Hezbollah and the resistance, until he finally focused on AIPAC seminars in Seattle and around the United States.
Haq told police in a precinct interview after the shootings (evidence suppressed by the judge) that he originally thought he would attack an AIPAC event, but that he changed his mind because he believed it would be too complicated.
Finally settling on the downtown Seattle Jewish philanthropic agency, Haq downloaded directions to its front door from MapQuest, traveled the 227 miles to Seattle, and waited in its unlocked foyer until a 14-year-old girl, Kelsey Burkum showed up.
That’s when he put a gun to her back, told her to be careful as she waited to be admitted, and the two then climbed the stairs to the second floor, where he asked for a manager, and began to shoot.
Prosecutor Donald Raz focused the court’s attention on a text document file found by Luckie and written by Haq named KUTBAH.doc. It was titled “The Sources of Muslim Anger.”
In a khutbah, the Arabic word for a special teaching or sermon, Haq wrote prolifically about the plight of Muslims throughout the world. He sympathized with Jews who have suffered under persecution, but wanted Muslims to better themselves and to gain more power in the world.
“If things don’t change there will be a very bloody future,” Raz quoted from the document. “Jews are overrepresented in American politics. Muslims are excluded.”
Defense attorneys are expected to put several doctors on the stand who will show that Haq was mentally ill for over a decade, hoping that the court will accept the premise that he was insane at the time of the shootings.
Haq has been found competent and able to stand trial.
To establish insanity, the defense must prove that their client could not distinguish between right and wrong, and could not form the intent to plan this crime, according to Washington law.
Haq suffers from diagnosed bi-polar disorder and schizoaffective disorder, according to a psychiatrist who first treated him for depression and attempted suicide at the University of Pennsylvania in 1998, while he was a dental student there.
Defense witness Dr. Alexandra McLean testified out of order on Monday; however, later in the day, Judge Paris K. Kallas ruled her testimony inadmissible due to more recent diagnoses from Haq’s doctors prior to the trial.
“I diagnosed him with schizoaffective disorder,” McLean told the court about her diagnosis in 1999. “He was still angry, crying, persecuted.”
McLean also said that Haq reported being “put off” from his family, and that he felt he was pressured to go to dental school.
Almost immediately after the shootings, Haq’s computers, weapons, ammunition, letters to his brother, and other items of evidence were seized from his eastern Washington apartment and the room he occupied in his parent’s home.
Detectives also found seven prescription medications in his Kennewick apartment.
Seattle Homicide Detective Alan Cruise, one of the team of investigators who flew to the residences at 1 a.m. the next morning, also testified Monday that Haq’s apartment was virtually empty except for his guns and his laptop computer.
“It looked like someone was either moving in or moving out,” Cruise told the court. “We found a knife, a shotgun box and shotgun with some sort of strap tied to it, and a Remington 870 shotgun manual.
“There was no bed, a laptop, a factory box to a pistol, a Ruger, a receipt for a Ruger, and ammunition.”
The defense objected to the jury hearing certain incriminating statements Haq made to police after his arrest, as well as those he made during state-ordered interviews with doctors who would evaluate his mental health.
Judge Kallas has not yet ruled on the admissibility of testimony from the state’s medical expert, who is relying on some of those statements to form his opinion.
Comments Haq voluntarily made to police during transport have been allowed in. However, Judge Kallas would not admit an interview with detectives, following the shooting, in which Haq was not provided an attorney after repeated requests.
On Wednesday, the defense began its case with testimony from Haq’s mother, who talked about her son’s descent into his mental illness.