abstract
| - Anwar Mohammed is a lawyer based in New York City. A practicing Muslim, he took endured an unfair amount of scrutiny from his colleagues in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks, yet the experience only re-affirmed his commitment to keeping his private faith separate from his professional life, even though this brought him scorn from his conservative fellow Muslims. His efforts to defend the rights of American Muslims earned him the respect of Assistant District Attorney Jack McCoy. When McCoy was prosecuting a Muslim convert, Mousah Salim, who had murdered a pair of married professors, the defendant demanded a lawyer who would understand Islamic views. In order to keep the trial from being delayed, McCoy approached Mohammed and suggested that he take the case. Mohammed agreed, but soon found himself frustrated by the belligerent Salim, who was less interested in trying to prove his innocence than in using the trial as an excuse to force everyone to listen to his rants about the false crimes of the United States and Israel. Mohammed tried hard to follow his duties as a defense attorney, but was greatly relieved when ADA Serena Southerlyn found a way to talk Salim into taking a plea bargain by threatening to reveal in open court that Salim's conversion to Islam was borne out of his being rejected by a girl. (L&O: "American Jihad")
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