JERSEY CITY (The Jersey Journal) - Standing handcuffed between his attorneys in green prison garb, Guyanese-born Alim Hassan pleaded guilty Monday to killing his wife, her mother and her sister in the Fox Place, Jersey City home just under a year-and-a-half ago.
Hassan, 32, stood silent except for brief answers mumbled to the judge's questions, as he entered his pleas.
He pleaded guilty to two counts of murder and one count of manslaughter for the July 30, 2002 slaying of wife Marilyn Hassan, 29, who was pregnant with twins; Marilyn's sister Sharon Yassim, 30, and the women's mother Bernadette Seajatan, 49.
The bodies of the women were found by Yassim's two sons - Andrew, who was 6 at the time, and Christopher, who was 2 - when they awoke in their Fox Place home on July 30.
Hassan could face up to 30 years in prison for each of the two murders, without the possibility of parole.
"He pleaded guilty because he's taking responsibility for what he did to his family," said Hudson County Prosecutor Edward DeFazio. "We are satisfied. We feel justice has been served. It's a horrific course of conduct perpetuated against the victims in this case."
Eight members of the victims' family attended the hearing, including a sister of Seajatan, who flew in from London. They all appeared exhausted, but they united to support one another.
The motives for the murders remain unclear, but the family thinks it was triggered by religious reasons and money matters. They said Alim Hassan, a Muslim, married Marilyn for money, but never accepted her Hindu faith. He and the murdered women quarreled a lot over after Marilyn objected to his insistence on taking his children to a mosque believed to be attended by al Qaeda activists.
Hassan, a native of Guyana, fled the scene of the crime after the triple slaying - stabbing his wife 23 times, his mother-in-law 27 times and his sister-in-law 19 times.
He made his way to a relative's home in central New Jersey and from there caught a bus to Canada. That night, he was arrested at a border crossing near Buffalo, New York, by Canadian police.
The victims' family said they accepted the sentence Hassan will likely face, but they had been hoping for the death penalty.