It appears now that Muslims are not the only ones expecting special treatment based on sharia precepts.
More information on this story: “Military Contractor Wants Sharia Law Applied In Soldiers’ Deaths,” by Katie Melone for Courant, July 11:
In 2005, Jeanette McMahon, the widow of an Army colonel raised in West Hartford, filed suit against the civilian contractor hired to fly her husband and two other soldiers across Afghanistan. Lt. Col. Mike McMahon, a Conard High School graduate, died in the November 2004 crash when the plane slammed into a mountain. McMahon and the widows of two other soldiers killed in the crash say Presidential Airways violated safety regulations.
Since the suit was filed, Presidential Airways Inc. has been trying to persuade the courts to dismiss the case. In the company’s latest motion for dismissal, Presidential, which is owned by the parent company of Blackwater Aviation, asserts that because the accident occurred overseas, the federal court now hearing the case should invoke the “American choice of laws,” a rule of law that would result in the application of Afghanistan sharia law.
Sharia law is Islamic religious law, based in large part on the Quran, which Muslims believe is the divine word of Allah as told to the prophet Muhammad through the angel Gabriel, and on the sayings and teachings of Muhammad.
Presidential contends that under sharia, it would not be liable for the actions of its employees.
“That is, to our mind, outrageous,” said Bob Spohrer, McMahon’s attorney, objecting to the idea that an American company being sued over the deaths of Americans in an American court would be subject to the law of Afghanistan.