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New Twist in High-Profile Case of Attempted Murder

Alan Kravitz in New York

To many of her friends and those who fought for her and to those who have come to know her personally and through the media coverage, Syeda Suffian is a heroine.

The 22-year-old Bangladeshi immigrant convinced the jury that her boyfriend, Mohammed Mohsin, also a Bangladeshi, had doused her with gasoline and set her ablaze.

Suffian's eloquent testimony was more effective than the defence for Mohsin, 31, who has been asserting that Suffian had set herself on fire to demand that he marry her.

Last month, Sakhi, the most powerful of the South Asian women's organisations that had backed Suffian and helped to organise her legal efforts, feted her and Davanand Singh, the assistant district attorney who fought her case.

But on Tuesday, Singh, Sakhi and friends of Suffian were in for a surprise -- and they are still trying to make sense of what really is happening.

A judge in Queens postponed sentencing Mohsin who had been found guilty in early May in the 1995 attempted murder of Suffian after the court was told Suffian had recanted her testimony.

Defence attorney Stephen Singer told the court that he has evidence that Suffian lied under oath. He said a clergyman, M A J Beg, had contacted him and told him that Suffian had met him because her conscience was troubled, and that she had asked his "assistance" in correcting a "horrible" mistake.

Beg, according to Singer, taped the conversation and had it translated into English. The defence attorney says Suffian said "Mohammed did not burn me". She lied because she was angry with him and had been coaxed by relatives to take revenge because he had insulted her honour.

She had told the jurors in May that he had doused her with gasoline and set her on fire because she was going to expose their relationship, and to stop him getting into an arranged marriage.

During the trial, the defence had pointed to a number of contradictions in her testimony, including her first statement to the police that the burn was an accident. But she stood her ground and argued that she lied because Mohsin intimated her.

Davanand Singh said the alleged recantation is either false or Suffian is being intimidated or coerced to change her testimony. He said that while an investigation is going on -- his office has copies of the tape -- he believes the conviction should stand.

But Mohsin, who is in jail and rejects the suggestion that he has been coercing Suffian through Bangladeshis in New York, says he wants the world to know the truth.

"If the tapes are accurate, the jury has convicted an innocent man," Singer said.

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