A man charged with trying to kill students at UNC Chapel Hill by driving through a popular campus gathering spot says in a series of letters that he does not deserve punishment.Mohammed Taheri-azar said in letters answering three-dozen questions from a reporter at the university's student newspaper that he won't plead guilty, as he previously planned, because his attack was justified and he doesn't deserve punishment.
"I aimed to exact casualties from an enemy responsible for thousands of casualties among Allah's followers," Taheri-azar wrote to the Daily Tar Heel.
Taheri-azar is accused of driving a Jeep Cherokee into a crowd of students March 3 at the university and hitting nine people. None had life-threatening injuries.
He has told investigators and reporters he wanted to avenge the deaths of Muslims caused by the U.S. around the world.
Taheri-azar said he has cut himself off from his family in the past year, but his parents visited him several times in Raleigh's Central Prison for three weeks after the attack. He's told them to quit coming, he said.
He said he was born in Iran and has lived in the United States since he was 2. He lived in Charlotte and attended South Mecklenburg High School. His mother is a secretary and interpreter in Afghanistan for a U.S. contractor, he said.
