waited until the snickers stopped before continuing as though he’d never heard the snickering. “Now his latest ploy is to say he answers only to his father ? Who is the father of Satan, or for that matter, the mother? We have some loose information that Mr. ben Yusef once had a father who died in a plane crash. And there is no mother of record . Astonishing, really, in this day and age when it is impossible to keep anything hidden. Yet this, this man just appeared and has no history ?
“How is that possible? I’ll tell you how: Demiel ben Yusef has no history of record because intelligence leads us to believe that his birth, his schooling, his very life have never been recorded because he was born and reared to become an enigma—a way to make the deluded believe he somehow miraculously just appeared out of nowhere to save us all!
“Well, the truth is he is a thirty-three-year-old man reared by parents, or perhaps by others who took him in, inside a terrorist camp , somewhere, probably Afghanistan. Nothing glorious or mysterious about that, is there?
“So who could have even birthed such a soulless creature? We don’t know; that’s how terrorists operate, in back corners and filthy desert hovels. But I can tell you this: Whoever his parents are or were, they weren’t people of God. The devil, perhaps, but not God!”
At that the Reverend Bill Teddy Smythe pounded his fist and declared, “Amen, brother! Amen!” He did this knowing it would create a commotion and knowing that the judge would admonish him. But the good preacher didn’t get to where he was by missing his moment. Ever.
Bagayoko rapped her gavel, while Bill Teddy smugly looked unfazed and even quite righteous—or quite self-righteous, at any rate.
Finegold let the furor die down and continued as though he’d not been interrupted. “Again, no one seems to know precisely the who, what, where, and, for the love of God, why.
“What we know is that Demiel ben Yusef suddenly appeared out of the desert four years ago, with dubious claims and clichéd sermons about how we should all love one another, while masterminding terrorist attacks around the world. We know this, and we will prove this beyond any doubt—to this august body.
“Nonetheless, via cyberspace he has, as you’ve seen outside this hallowed assembly hall this very day, amassed a worldwide following of deluded believers.
“Why, you may ask, could, would anyone follow a man who preaches ‘love of every living thing’ and yet carries out a personal jihad against the innocent whom he thinks deserve death because they are not ‘true believers’?
“Believers of what? Of the endless suffering and death of the innocents? Are the thousands of children and adults who have been killed and maimed merely the detritus of war? What war? Demiel ben Yusef’s personal holy war?
“Why indeed would anyone call this monster a man of God?” He finished and held aloft a horrifying photo of a mother and dead child lying on the once-grand steps outside the Matriz Church in Manaus, Brazil, a city at the tip of the Amazon.
The photo showed the woman covered in the blood of her child, screaming while holding her dead five-year-old, whose legs had been blown off. They lay amid the rubble of the bombed-out steps, after an explosion that took the lives of 350 churchgoers that Sunday morning, including 120 Sunday-school kids.
He then turned to the judges and addressed them.
“Judge Bagayoko, assembled justices, if I may, I would like to bring in some of the children who will be called before this assembly.”
Since everyone in or near the courtroom had been cleared well ahead of time, the gesture was a mere courtesy. The dramatic move had most likely been approved beforehand by Bagayoko, who quickly consented and gestured for the chamber doors to open.
None of us, even the most hardened, was prepared for what came next. A line of ten parents entered, wheeling children with every manner of
“How is that possible? I’ll tell you how: Demiel ben Yusef has no history of record because intelligence leads us to believe that his birth, his schooling, his very life have never been recorded because he was born and reared to become an enigma—a way to make the deluded believe he somehow miraculously just appeared out of nowhere to save us all!
“Well, the truth is he is a thirty-three-year-old man reared by parents, or perhaps by others who took him in, inside a terrorist camp , somewhere, probably Afghanistan. Nothing glorious or mysterious about that, is there?
“So who could have even birthed such a soulless creature? We don’t know; that’s how terrorists operate, in back corners and filthy desert hovels. But I can tell you this: Whoever his parents are or were, they weren’t people of God. The devil, perhaps, but not God!”
At that the Reverend Bill Teddy Smythe pounded his fist and declared, “Amen, brother! Amen!” He did this knowing it would create a commotion and knowing that the judge would admonish him. But the good preacher didn’t get to where he was by missing his moment. Ever.
Bagayoko rapped her gavel, while Bill Teddy smugly looked unfazed and even quite righteous—or quite self-righteous, at any rate.
Finegold let the furor die down and continued as though he’d not been interrupted. “Again, no one seems to know precisely the who, what, where, and, for the love of God, why.
“What we know is that Demiel ben Yusef suddenly appeared out of the desert four years ago, with dubious claims and clichéd sermons about how we should all love one another, while masterminding terrorist attacks around the world. We know this, and we will prove this beyond any doubt—to this august body.
“Nonetheless, via cyberspace he has, as you’ve seen outside this hallowed assembly hall this very day, amassed a worldwide following of deluded believers.
“Why, you may ask, could, would anyone follow a man who preaches ‘love of every living thing’ and yet carries out a personal jihad against the innocent whom he thinks deserve death because they are not ‘true believers’?
“Believers of what? Of the endless suffering and death of the innocents? Are the thousands of children and adults who have been killed and maimed merely the detritus of war? What war? Demiel ben Yusef’s personal holy war?
“Why indeed would anyone call this monster a man of God?” He finished and held aloft a horrifying photo of a mother and dead child lying on the once-grand steps outside the Matriz Church in Manaus, Brazil, a city at the tip of the Amazon.
The photo showed the woman covered in the blood of her child, screaming while holding her dead five-year-old, whose legs had been blown off. They lay amid the rubble of the bombed-out steps, after an explosion that took the lives of 350 churchgoers that Sunday morning, including 120 Sunday-school kids.
He then turned to the judges and addressed them.
“Judge Bagayoko, assembled justices, if I may, I would like to bring in some of the children who will be called before this assembly.”
Since everyone in or near the courtroom had been cleared well ahead of time, the gesture was a mere courtesy. The dramatic move had most likely been approved beforehand by Bagayoko, who quickly consented and gestured for the chamber doors to open.
None of us, even the most hardened, was prepared for what came next. A line of ten parents entered, wheeling children with every manner of
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