Store clerk gets life for Lauderdale double murder

Imran Hussain was convicted earlier this month of two counts of first-degree murder, two counts of robbery with a deadly weapon and one count of arson.

Posted on Wed, Oct. 24, 2007

Store clerk gets life for Lauderdale double murder
BY HANNAH SAMPSON

The fired dollar store clerk who bludgeoned his former bosses to death and then set their bodies and shop ablaze will spend the rest of his life in prison for the crime.
Broward Circuit Judge Martin Bidwill sentenced Imran Hussain to life in prison without the possibility of parole Tuesday, moments after a majority of jurors recommended that sentence over the death penalty.

Hussain, 32, was convicted earlier this month of two counts of first-degree murder, two counts of robbery with a deadly weapon and one count of arson in the Nov. 29, 2001, deaths of Mohammed Abul Kalam, 45, and his wife, Joynab Chowdhury, 37.

Jury foreman Ron Schnepp said he was in favor of the death penalty, but a majority of jurors thought it would be a harsher penalty for Hussain to spend the rest of his life in prison.

''They wanted to punish him,'' said Schnepp, 59. ``A lot of people felt that the death penalty would be letting him off too easy.''

In closing arguments earlier Tuesday, prosecutor Brian Cavanagh told jurors they should recommend death because of several factors, including the physical and emotional torment that the victims suffered before they died.

During the trial, Cavanagh said Hussain -- who had once lived with the couple and their family -- was motivated by greed and anger when he bludgeoned the couple to death at the Sunrise Dollar Store in Fort Lauderdale.

Defense attorney Barry Butin pleaded with jurors to have mercy on Hussain, whose prior criminal record of drug use and theft did not include violent offenses.

He said Hussain had been a cooperative inmate in the Broward County Jail, and said Hussain's addiction to cocaine had fueled much of his bad behavior in the past.

''I feel bad for everybody, feel bad for us, feel bad for them,'' said Hussain's oldest brother, Iqbal Hussain, who was in court Tuesday.

The victims' son and daughter, Mohammed A. Hossain and Rabeya Khatun, had tears in their eyes after Hussain was sentenced.

They were teenagers when their parents were killed; an older brother was serving in the Marine Corps.

Now 20, Khatun is studying culinary arts. Hossain, 24, graduated recently from Florida Atlantic University, where he majored in criminal justice. He said Tuesday that he wants to be a detective.