Roanoke man recalls interaction with Fort Hood shooting suspect

A Roanoke man recalled his interactions with Major Nidal Hasan.

The U.S. Army suspects Hasan of gunning down 13 people, and injuring dozens of others, at Fort Hood, Texas last week.

Ralph Rasoul, a Roanoke valley resident, remembers his conversations with Hasan from about 7 years ago.

Rasoul’s daughter married Hasan’s younger brother.

“We had to have face-to-face meetings and we talked a few times,“ Rasoul said.

Two months into the marriage, Rasoul said the union between his daughter and Hasan’s brother, Eyad, started to crumble.

A divorce proceeding followed where Rasoul, the family patriarch, acted as a moderator for his daughter.

Since Hasan’s father passed away around 1998, and he was the eldest son, Nidal Hasan acted as the mediator for his brother.

Rasoul and Hasan then had a series of a few meetings and conversations to decide the divorce.

“[Hasan] was a quiet person. He didn’t say much. But when he did open up, he was like a broken record,“ Rasoul said.

A “broken record” Hasan said in the sense that, when Hasan felt cornered, he professed that only his beliefs in the conservative principles of the Muslim faith were right, and everyone else was wrong.

Rasoul said he spotted Hasan’s anger then.

“I got the impression that [Hasan] thought we were all evil people and he was an Angel,“ Rasoul said.

Rasoul said he sees what Hasan is accused of doing as definitely terrorism in the moral sense.

But Rasoul said he does not believe Hasan was associated with any terror groups.