Two Days Before He's to Die, Stroman Talks to CBS News About Victim's Fight to Save Him

As you're no doubt well aware by now, Mark Stroman is scheduled to die down in Huntsville on Wednesday for killing Waqar Hasan, a Pakistani father of four who was gunned down on September 15, 2001, while working in southeast Dallas local convenience store; and Vasudev Patel, an Indian Hindu...

By Robert Wilonsky

July 18, 2011

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As you're no doubt well aware by now, Mark Stroman is scheduled to die down in Huntsville on Wednesday for killing Waqar Hasan, a Pakistani father of four who was gunned down on September 15, 2001, while working in southeast Dallas local convenience store; and Vasudev Patel, an Indian Hindu murdered one week later at a Shell station on Big Town Boulevard. Said Stroman at the time, the attacks were intended "to retaliate on local Arab Americans" in the days following the terror attacks of September 11, 2001. And as you're no doubt well aware by now, another man Stroman attacked -- Rais Bhuiyan, who the white supremacist shot in the face at a Pleasant Grove convenience store -- is suing Gov. Rick Perry and the Texas Department of Criminal Justice to stop the execution.

That legal fight will be the subject of a piece airing tonight on the CBS Evening News with Scott Pelley. Don Teague, who today announced he's leaving CBS for NBC, interviewed not only Bhuiyan, but also Stroman, who so far has rejected most interview requests from Death Row.

In the segment set to air, Bhuiyan explains his crusade thusly: "We have to stand at some point and say enough is enough. We have to break the cycle of this hate and violence." Stroman tells Teague that "these nine and a half years have been a journey for me. ... I mean, I've come from a person with hate embedded into him into a person with a lot of love and understanding for all races."

We will post the video when it becomes available, which will be some time after this evening's 5:30 C.S.T. broadcast.

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