The murder trial of a store employee charged with shooting and killing a man during a 2002 robbery attempt was halted yesterday by a Jefferson Circuit Court judge who ruled there was not enough evidence to continue.
In announcing his ruling, Judge Martin McDonald also called the dead man an "animal," according to the wife of the deceased and the prosecutor in the case.
After prosecutors rested their case against Firas Al Kurdi yesterday, McDonald granted his attorney's request for a directed verdict, in essence finding Al Kurdi not guilty of murdering James J. Abdul-Shajee, who was shot three times, once in the back.
Abdul-Shajee's family expressed outrage that the trial was ended, as well as at McDonald's comments from the bench.
"He said that if anybody was a victim, it was Al Kurdi and that we as a community owe him an apology," said Sharon Shajee, Abdul-Shajee's wife. "It was like my husband deserved to die. Whatever he feels, he's a judge. You don't cast your opinion. You're supposed to be" unbiased.
Mac Shannon, a prosecutor in the case, confirmed that the judge had called the dead man an animal, but both he and Steve Tedder, a spokesman for the commonwealth's attorney's office, declined to comment on the remarks.
"The judge will have to answer to that," Tedder said.
McDonald could not be reached for comment last night.
As for the murder trial, "it was a tough case," Tedder said. "We felt like it should go to trial and be decided at trial."
Al Kurdi, who worked at the Shelby Food Mart at 311 S. Shelby St., fatally shot Abdul-Shajee in October 2002 as he tried to rob the store armed with a knife. A Jefferson County grand jury indicted Al Kurdi on one count of murder in March 2003.
Abdul-Shajee was charged posthumously with first-degree robbery.
Police at the time said all three shots that hit Abdul-Shajee were fired inside the store. Armand Judah, an attorney for the Jordanian-born Al Kurdi, declined to comment last night.
In a previous interview, Judah said that his client acted in self-defense, and that Abdul-Shajee, 33, nearly cut off Al Kurdi's nose with a knife during the robbery.
Abdul-Shajee's record included a half-dozen convictions for armed robbery, including a 1994 holdup of the Star of Louisville dinner boat. He was 19 when he tried to rob Brother's Pawn Shop on Market Street with a sawed-off shotgun in 1988. He briefly took a customer hostage, holding the shotgun to his head, according to court records.
Sharon Shajee acknowledged that her husband had tried to rob the Shelby Food Mart, but said that he should not have died and that a jury should have heard the case.
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The judge merely called the deceased robber what he was, an animal who tried to kill this shopowner and got a well-deserved lead injection for his trouble.A Jefferson circuit judge yesterday defended a statement he made in court Thursday when he called a man fatally shot while committing a 2002 robbery an "animal."
While some family members and activists are calling for the judge to be removed from the bench, some legal experts noted yesterday that judges are not prohibited from making such comments as long as the case has been decided.
Judge Martin McDonald stopped the murder trial of former store employee Firas Al Kurdi, who was charged with shooting and killing James J. Abdul-Shajee during a robbery, ruling that Al Kurdi should never have been indicted.
"If there is a victim in this room right now, it's" Al Kurdi, McDonald said on Thursday as he made his ruling. "He was viciously assaulted by this animal and his actions were completely reasonable under the circumstances."
Abdul-Shajee's family and members of the Kentucky Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression have expressed outrage over the comment and are asking for McDonald to be removed.
"This is not just a matter that affects this family," said Anne Braden, of the alliance at a press conference yesterday. "This is an insult to the whole community."
But in a brief interview yesterday, McDonald did not back away from his characterization of Abdul-Shajee, saying the proof is in the evidence presented during the trial and in Abdul-Shajee's background.
Abdul-Shajee nearly cut off Al Kurdi's nose with a knife during the Oct. 12, 2002, robbery at the Shelby Food Mart at 311 S. Shelby St., causing injuries that required several plastic surgery operations, prosecutors have said.
Abdul-Shajee was charged posthumously with first-degree robbery.
"The proof was overwhelming that the shop owner was fending for his life," McDonald said in the interview. "And the perpetrator was not just a robber. This was an attempted murder."
And, McDonald said, Abdul-Shajee had a lengthy record before this incident.
Personally I think the Jefferson County Prosecutor's Office owes the defendant both an apology and reimbursement of attorney's fees, as there was nothing in the two articles that even remotely hinted that the charges were justified, and a Judge determined that they weren't in the most positive manner he could.
I'd really like to see this Judge tell Anne Braden to piss up a rope.
