Docs: Mohammad Abdulazeez’s Father Was Muslim Fundamentalist Accused of Violent Abuse

Mohammad Abdulazeez, the slain shooter in the Chattanooga, Tennessee terror attack that took the lives of four U.S. Marines, may have had a strained relationship with his fundamentalist Muslim father Youssuf Saed.

From the Washington Post:

According to court documents, Abdulazeez’s parents were involved in preliminary divorce proceedings in 2009 in which his mother, Rasmia Ibrahim Abdulazeez, accused his father, Youssuf Saed Abdulazeez, of abusing her and their five children. A complaint filed by his mother said her husband repeatedly beat her, at times in the presence of the children, and “sexually assaulted” her in their home when the children were there.

The document said the father also “announced that he intends to take a second wife, as permitted under certain circumstances under Islamic law, in the parties’ native State of Palestine.” In addition, it said, the defendant had been “physically and verbally abusive towards the children, striking and berating them without provocation or justification.”

It said Abdulazeez’s mother was “in fear for her safety” at the hands of her husband, who was ordered to leave the marital home. The couple reconciled several weeks later, records show.

Youssuf Saed Abdulazeez filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy protection in 2002, and the case was closed in 2005, another court document said.

The FBI investigated him twice — in 1994 and 2002 — for allegedly making financial contributions to entities controlled by Hamas, the Islamist Palestinian militant group that runs the Gaza Strip, U.S. officials said. He was put on a terrorism watch list the second time but later removed.

…

In high school, Abdulazeez was active as a wrestler, competing in the 189-pound weight class. He later competed briefly on the mixed-martial-arts circuit, training at the Chattanooga Fight Factory, a local gym.

A video of one cage fight from 2009 shows him pummeling a middleweight from Shelbyville, Tenn., winning in the second round on a technical knockout. Accounts of the bout were posted at the time on several Web sites.

Two martial arts trainers who helped prepare Abdulazeez for his fight said his father was furious afterward, apparently believing that the sport was un-Islamic.

“Mohammad said he got in a lot of trouble,” said one trainer, Scott Schrader, a co-owner of the Fight Factory. “After that, I maybe saw him one or two times, and he was gone.”

Read the rest of the story here.