Hasina Patel
Last night a journalist called and wanted to talk about Mohammed Siddique Khan's widow, Hasina, who had given an interview after a long silence. He sent through the interview transcript, and I read it, remembering when I wrote this article on forgiveness.
My overwhelming very personal reaction on reading it was of sadness: poor woman, and poor daughter. She was decieved, she did not truly know the man she once loved, and her life has been blighted by his actions as so many other lives have been. He kept her apart from him, kept her in the dark, and perhaps her was already dead to her as husband and father of her child before he died. She thought him a good Muslim, and he was a mass-murderer. I don't know why she spoke out now: perhaps she felt she had nothing left to lose. I wonder how those who lost loved ones because of his actions will feel today. I cannot speak for them, only for myself, but I have passed the transcript on to warn them. My anger was always towards the bombers and those who peddle their murderous ideaology, recruit young men to this extremist death-cult that masquerades as political and righteous and holy. As to the families whom they did not love enough to spare years of suffering and shame and grief, my heart goes out to them
Hasina is a victim too, and I hope she can find peace for herself and her child and her family.
My overwhelming very personal reaction on reading it was of sadness: poor woman, and poor daughter. She was decieved, she did not truly know the man she once loved, and her life has been blighted by his actions as so many other lives have been. He kept her apart from him, kept her in the dark, and perhaps her was already dead to her as husband and father of her child before he died. She thought him a good Muslim, and he was a mass-murderer. I don't know why she spoke out now: perhaps she felt she had nothing left to lose. I wonder how those who lost loved ones because of his actions will feel today. I cannot speak for them, only for myself, but I have passed the transcript on to warn them. My anger was always towards the bombers and those who peddle their murderous ideaology, recruit young men to this extremist death-cult that masquerades as political and righteous and holy. As to the families whom they did not love enough to spare years of suffering and shame and grief, my heart goes out to them
Hasina is a victim too, and I hope she can find peace for herself and her child and her family.
posted by Rachel at 8:52 am
A most measured post. I too saw her interview on the news today her having worn a niqab probably for privacy rather than any other reason though the press showed a photogrpah of her wearing western clothing and her hair loose.
Hope things are well.
Henry
Noble and humane.
She presumably spoke out because the police decided to arrest her and keep her in custody for 7 days, 2 years' after the bombings, without what seems to have been a shred of evidence to link her to what her husband carried out whatsoever. That and doubtless she was offered some sort of sum of money.
I've always wondered what was going on in her head. I think she's tired of being muffled by her own silence now... good on her!
What naive nonsense!
It stretches credulity to the limits to suggest she had no knowledge, or even suspicion, of what he was doing and what his attitudes were. It is logical and extremely likely she is guilty of conspiracy to murder and obstructing justice by saying nothing. While that may be difficult to 'prove', hence the fact that she's not been convicted of anything, the police interest in her is totally justified.
She wrote a piece in the Guardian, I think it was (where else?!) saying her husband was once a good man, expressing sympathy. Sure he was! - before he became a murderous psychopath! The same can be said about Hitler.