Texas death row killer forgiven by shooting victim

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In the nine years Mark Stroman has been on death row in Texas, he says he has watched 208 people walk past him on the way to be executed. This week it is his turn. But fighting to save his life is the man he shot in the face and blinded in one eye.

In the days following 11 September, 2001, Stroman attacked three people, killing two of them. Rais Bhuiyan after the attack The attack left Rais Bhuyian blind in his right eye He was targeting anyone he considered an "Arab", calling it revenge for 9/11. "What Mark Stroman did was a hate crime, and hate crimes come from ignorance," said Rais Bhuiyan, 37, the only man to survive the shooting. "His execution will not eradicate hate crimes from this world, we will just simply lose another human life."

It was a Friday lunchtime when a gunman walked into the petrol station shop and pointed a double-barrelled shotgun at Rais. He had been robbed before and knew what to do. He offered the money from the cash register, but that didn't appear to be what Mark Stroman had come for. "He asked me 'where are you from?' and that's a strange question to ask in a robbery. As soon as I said 'excuse me?' I heard an explosion and felt the sensation of a million bees stinging my face."

Rais Bhuyian, a Bangladeshi-born naturalised US citizen, played dead until his attacker left. “If I can forgive my offender who tried to take my life, we can all work together to forgive each other and move forward” He needed many operations, has lost the sight in his right eye and still carries shotgun pellets in his face, but is now campaigning hard to prevent his attacker from being put to death.

Mark Stroman killed two other men in a similar way - Vasudev Patel, an Indian immigrant who was Hindu, and Waqar Hasan, a Muslim born in Pakistan. They were both shot as they stood behind a counter....... read more