- News>
- World
Death sentence for Sodhi`s killer
Los Angeles, Oct 10: A man convicted of murdering a Sikh petrol station owner in the days following the September 11 terror strikes has been sentenced to death by a jury in Phoenix, Arizona, officials said.
Los Angeles, Oct 10: A man convicted of murdering a Sikh petrol station owner in the days following the September 11 terror strikes has been sentenced to death by a jury in Phoenix, Arizona, officials said.
Frank Roque was convicted on September 30 of the fatal shooting of Balbir Singh Sodhi in front of the Indian immigrant`s service station in the Arizona city of Mesa four days after the 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States.
"A death sentence has been handed down for the count of first degree murder," Maricopa County Superior Court spokeswoman Shawn Johnston said yesterday.
During the trial, prosecutors portrayed Roque as a drunken racist bent on killing people he believed to be Muslims or of Arabic descent following the airborne terror attacks on New York and Washington. Sodhi, 49, who immigrated to the United States from his native Punjab in the 1980s, was targeted because he wore a Sikh turban and sported an untrimmed beard, they alleged.
Roque also fired shots at a home of an Afghan family and another service station which employed a Lebanese-American cashier, prosecutors told the court during Roque`s trial.
While Roque`s lawyers did not deny that the 44-year-old former machinist had killed Sodhi September 15, 2001, they pleaded with jurors to spare his life, saying he was insane at the time of the attack.
Psychiatrist Jack Potts said the attacks on the United States acted as a trigger for Roque`s rage, born of a genetic history of mental illness and borderline intelligence.
Bureau Report
"A death sentence has been handed down for the count of first degree murder," Maricopa County Superior Court spokeswoman Shawn Johnston said yesterday.
During the trial, prosecutors portrayed Roque as a drunken racist bent on killing people he believed to be Muslims or of Arabic descent following the airborne terror attacks on New York and Washington. Sodhi, 49, who immigrated to the United States from his native Punjab in the 1980s, was targeted because he wore a Sikh turban and sported an untrimmed beard, they alleged.
Roque also fired shots at a home of an Afghan family and another service station which employed a Lebanese-American cashier, prosecutors told the court during Roque`s trial.
While Roque`s lawyers did not deny that the 44-year-old former machinist had killed Sodhi September 15, 2001, they pleaded with jurors to spare his life, saying he was insane at the time of the attack.
Psychiatrist Jack Potts said the attacks on the United States acted as a trigger for Roque`s rage, born of a genetic history of mental illness and borderline intelligence.
Bureau Report