Docket# 318-64 Case #Phi-36529 a-4
The State of Pennsylvania
vs.
Zahir 'Zafir' Ibn Mutalib
When he was sworn in to testify the Bailiff exchanged the Bible for a Holy Quran for him to put his hand on.
"I, Zahir Ibn Mutalib swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth so help me God?" Zahir said repeating after the bailiff.
"You may be seated." The judge stated.
Her conservative, dark blue, pin stripped skirt suit that rode just above the knee was sexy-but lawyerly. However, the skirt wasn't sexy enough to win what seemed an unwinnable case. No jury would let him off. Attorney Alexander told Zahir Ibn Mutalib it would be in his best interest to enter an insanity plea, and let the doctors, lawyers, the jury and the judge decide . Zahir insisted on taking the stand and telling his side of the story-a story that made the jaws of the jurors drop.
"Mr. Mutalib describe for the court, the events that transpired on the night of November 15th 1991."
"Pogo was telling me, you gotta lock the dice in your palm when you throw 'em. Boom said if you throw the dice at an angle and from a certain height you'll hit your point everytime providing you hold the dice on the number opposite of the point you're trying to hit. As I was shooting dice I was fully aware that maisir (gambling) was unlawful. Maisir is forbidden in Islam. We were all in the room getting high, playing a friendly game of dice with the strippers and one stripper rolled a '2', '3', '4','5','6','7','8',9','10','11' and a '12 in numerical sequence. I had never seen anyone do that. That's when I knew for sure that jinn were in the room."
"And Mr. Mutalib what are 'Jinn'?" His defense attorney asked.
"Jinn are beings created by Allah and Allah has created them from smokeless fire. Jinns are kinda like ghost. My father told me that some jinn can manipulate and entice an individual's 'naffs'-"
"Mr. Mutalib can you explain to the court what 'naffs' are."
"Bad habits like drinking, smoking', drugs, gambling and stuff like that. They are my personal sins. These are the problems that can cause a good muslim to become a bad muslim. Naffs cause fitna and 'fitna' is confusion. This whole trial is because of my own internal fitna. Back then in the early 90's I had a lot of naffs and Allah Subhannu Watallah has since helped me overcome these naffs which were at the time leading me to torment in the grave and to the hell fire after I die. I needed to get myself right in the eyes of Allah Subhannu Wattallah. My father's been telling me stories about torment in the grave since I was a baby but I was hard-headed and wanted dunya(worldy pleasures), instead of jannat(paradise in the after life)."
"A few months prior to November 15th 1991 a jinn whispered in my ear and convinced me to stop making salat. So when my prayers stopped I mentally broke down-things went from bad to worse. Allah Subhannu Watallah doesn't need my Salat. The human being needs to make salat to glorify Allah and to maintain his or her spiritual hygiene. When I stopped offering salat I became susceptible to the 'wass wass' which is the 'whispering' of Shaitan."
After the stripper rolled the dice and the jinni made the dice fall in numerical order I freaked out. We all were high when she did it but I was high outta my mind. The fact is-I was so high I could see jinn all around the room. Me, Boom and Pogo had planned to trick an ounce of coke on three strippers from West Philly and have the party back at Boom's crib. The chicks brought a gang of jinn with 'em. The jinn were coming through the walls, and floating through the roof and coming out of the floor. The Jinn told me they were all a family. A big family of jinn-can you believe that?!"
"Mr. Mutalib could anyone else in the room see the 'jinn' besides you?"
"No. But I saw what the jinn were doing to the people at the party. To the best of my knowledge I was the only one who could both see and hear the jinn. By the time I found out that the marijuana was laced, the coke had me stuck in this weird head space. I was somewhere between horny, angry, and paranoid. Strangely, I was hearing my own thoughts in my head crystal clear. It was as if my inner hearing had become super sonic. That night I didn't trust anyone. My mind turned everything into a believable conspiracy. I could see each one of 'the jinn. They looked greasy purple and had blood shot red eyes. They played tricks on my mind and entered into my body like wisping demons made of smoke. While they were in my body-they caused me to freak out and murder the stripper."
"After I killed the girl, Pogo left immediately and Boom was screaming in my face. Boom has always looked like a dog, ever since he was a little boy. He got his name after Mr. Wade's dead dog, 'Boom'. Melvin looked exactly like the dog, so we started callin Melvin 'New Boom' and by the time we were in High School, just 'Boom'."
"Boom was barking in my face like a big mean black dog. I couldn't hear anything he was saying. The laced weed had me lost in my own world. It was November '91, about a week after Magic announced to the world that he had HIV. Magic's announcement scared me. Magic was my favorite player and I was depressed for an entire week after his announcement. If someone told a joke about Magic I was ready to fight. People say I look like Magic and when I play ball I mimic his every move. Though I lived in 76er land I was a Laker fan to my heart. I loved Doctor J, but I just have always had a sincere love for the Lakers. I couldn't imagine Magic dying-so, I became very depressed."
"When celebrity bad news impacts you to the point of depression- you begin to wonder if you have a firm grip on reality. Magic don't know me from Adam and I was in mourning? Magic's disease had something to do with setting me off. Later that night I emptied the clip in the strippers face. At the time none of us knew the weed was laced. The coke made my heart race and to make matters worse I was drinking Henessey straight. The Jinn told me that Carlos had sent the women to kill me, Pogo and Boom. Carlos was cool and he always sent tight bitches: excuse me". Mutalib looked at the judge quickly with eyes that apologized for the inadvertent slip of a cuss word."
"Carlos always sent nice looking' women our way but that night jinns were whispering in my mind confusing me. I had never met any of the ladies before but the weed laced with PCP made me distrust every single woman in the room and I didn't even know any of the ladies personally. Between the laced weed, the raw coke, Henessey straight and the fact that the Shaitan sent his Shaiteen to whisper at me-it caused me to have a chemical and spiritual melt down. The Jinns were yelling at me, telling me to kill the snake. The PCP made the stripper turn into a snake: it was the most vivid view of reality I've ever seen. A purple Jinn walked up to me and told me to put my 45 caliber in the girl's face. The gun caught her attention while she was dancing and I squeezed and kept pulling the trigger: bullet after bullet, after bullet entered her head. The PCP had me so out of my mind that after the last shot another purple jinn wearing a suit and tie walked up and stood next to me and told me a joke about Donald Duck while Boom was yelling in my face."
"The weed is laced. The weed is laced. The weed is laced. The weed is laced!!!!" Boom said up close in my face . Boom screamed at me very loudly but I was still in a trance listening to this jinni wearing the suit, talking about Donald Duck."
I was laughing at the story the Jinni was telling me about Donald Duck and after Boom finished screaming, he punched me in my face hard, knocking out my two front teeth. The PCP and coke had me so high that even after Boom punched me I was still laughing at the Jinni's story. A tooth had cut through my top lip. One of the knocked out teeth was firmly lodged in my top lip meat. Boom was on the ground holding me, screaming, "Why'd you do that Zahir? Why'd you do it?"
The other two strippers became hysterical after I shot their friend. One urinated on herself while running for the apartment door. I remember thinking that the stream of urine running down her legs and thighs looked like a skinny gold snake wrapping around her leg. The two strippers ran out into Boom's hallway. In the midst of all the commotion I was paying attention to the story the Jinn was telling me about Donald Duck bucking' up to go kill Daffy Duck over duck shit. Excuse my language Your Honor. The Jinn had me laughing really hard. It felt like I was looking at a high definition television in my head. The PCP in the weed allowed me to hear and see both Daffy and Donald really clear. The coke we were snorting made the bad trip worse. Both the ducks in my mind started shooting at each other and I found myself in the middle of a really violent cartoon. I was physically ducking to get out of the way of the imaginary bullets that the ducks were shooting.
After Boom knocked out my two front teeth my blood was dripping all over the floor. When the jinn finished his duck joke he told me I was going to rot in hell. That's when I saw the death angel come and violently rip the stripper's ru (soul) out of her back. My faith in the reality of Allah and the truth of the Holy Quran became 100 percent when I saw all of this. Yes, I pulled the trigger, but the jinni made me do it. Blood from my mouth was mixing with the dead stripper's blood. I knew then that-that meant we were both going to have to deal with being tormented in the grave and we'll probably both be condemned to the hell fire when we die. Allah ul ilam(Only God Knows)!"
"Parts blown from Adrienne Johnson's face caused her head to appear to have holes in it-it did have holes but in my mind the holes were similar to that of swiss cheese. It was surreal-I murdered an innocent human being. This girl was a stripper striving to make a few dollars for whatever reason and the Jinns that worked for the Shaitan whispered in my head and made me kill her. It's not fair that I'm being prosecuted. Yes, I pulled the trigger but the jinn spoken of in the Holy Quran were in control of my mind. If I would have kept up with my salat I would have had Allah's protection from going majnun(crazy).
The prosecutor didn't object or bat an eye. Zahir sounded like an idiot to the jury. The prosecutor kept his head down taking notes of Zafir's testimony.
"Three weeks later I was found wandering around Center City Philadelphia looking completely crazy. I looked like a dirty, homeless person. I didn't remember who I was until I snapped outta the PCP trip a month after they picked me up.
That's when they started me on psyche meds. I don't know what kind of meds exactly but whatever it was didn't stop me from seeing the jinns."
"My clothes were dirty-in a few weeks I went from a rather sharp dresser to a schizophrenic bum mumbling at jinn on the streets of Center City Philadelphia. My mama suffered from schizophrenia and that's why my father divorced her and fought to get custody of me and my brothers and sisters."
"Mr Mutalib when did you wake up or snap out of this alleged mental breakdown and did you at anytime recall that you murdered Adrienne Johnson in cold blood just two month prior?" The prosecutor was smooth in his line of questioning.
"The smell of my own defecation made people walking past me on the street get outta my way. For three weeks I had been going to the bathroom on myself. My own funk was so foul it snapped me back from the PCP trip. My two teeth were gone, and I was severely dehydrated when they put me in the ambulance. My clothes were funky, my hair had grew wild and I was babbling like a fool to the jinns. Me and the Jinns were playing a game of tag. The object of our game was to roll on the ground and tag each other. My memory is clear, and not at all spotty. I could see and hear those jinn that day as sure as you are standing in front of me now sir. I couldn't remember all of what I did or everywhere I had been for many of those days but I know that the jinn were real and it is the Jinn that are the ones to blame for the death of Ms. Adrienne Johnson: the stripper. Not me! The Jinn controlled me like a puppet. When the psychiatric people came to get me I was laying on Broad Street, rolling around in the middle of the street trying to tag the jinn because I was 'it'.
Next thing I know I was on a psyche Ward in Hahnemann Hospital. When they picked me up I was so filthy that the cops waited for an ambulance. They refused to touch me because I was very dirty. The cops didn't recognize me from the artists' sketch of the stripper's murderer that was posted in the Philadelphia Daily Newspaper a few days after the murder. I had grown a wild thick beard and looked completely majnun(crazy). "
"On the psyche ward I told the Doctors and Nurses that my name was Max Dasher and I was sent here to Earth to kill the whore who gave Magic Johnson HIV and avenge the death of Daffy Duck at the hands of Donald. The side effects of PCP gave me the mentality of a 6 year old living in a play world. Regardless of the meds I kept playing tag with the jinn. I still see 'em. There goes one right there standing next to the bailiff. I see you!". Zahir said pointing to an empty corner in the courtroom.
"Your honor the defense request a recess. My client is clearly tired and becoming delusional."
"Recess granted. Court is adjourned until 9 a.m. Monday morning."
The weekend was long, but Zahir's story was just as strange when he resumed his testimony Monday morning.
"There was no I.D on me when they picked me up, so on the psyche ward I was known as John Doe. While on the ward I threw feces on a Black male nurse named Big Mike. I meant to hit one of the jinns I was playing tag with but I hit Mike instead. Big Mike was rather upset and chased me down and beat me up really bad. He beat me so bad I remember screaming "Don't beat me daddy! Don't beat me". I cried like a two year old child. After Mike beat me he fed me my own defecation piece by piece."
"Two months later I recovered my mental faculties but I was still seeing jinn.Though I was seeing Jinn, I managed to remember that my name was Zahir Ibn Mutalib and that my father's an Imam in West Philly. The meds were making me better. Until I shot that stripper in the face I was sort of a wannabe neighborhood drug kingpin and Boom was my right-hand man. $4500 dollars was all that our little cocaine drug cartel was worth but in our minds we were destined to be kingpins. But at that point I just wanted my mind back. Though I remembered my name I was still seeing jinn and murdering the stripper didn't seem real-it was like a dream."
"Before I was admitted to the hospital they took my prints and nothing came back, and before I was discharged they ran my name for warrants and again-nothing came back. I was released from the hospital with enough bus fare to catch SEPTA home."
"Wearing nothing but thin hospital scrubs, a pair of old man shoes, and an old green corderoy suit jacket to keep the January cold air from killing me I made it back home. My father opened the door.
"Salaam Alaikum and where the hell have you been?" He asked.
The rest of this testimony has been redacted at the request of the defendant's attorney because the State is seeking the death penalty.
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Sealed by
Megan Jefferson
Court Clerk
