A jury was being selected Tuesday to hear the murder charge against a Downers Grove man accused of killing his mother at a time authorities had targeted him in an immigration scam.
The trial of Michael Zaky Bassaly, 31, was anticipated to begin either later Tuesday or Wednesday morning in the DuPage County courtroom of Judge Daniel Guerin.
Guerin told members of the jury pool that the case may be completed for deliberation by Thursday. Selection began around 11 a.m.
Bassaly is accused of the first-degree murder of Yvonne Zaky Bassaly, 61, who was shot to death on Aug. 29, 2013 in her car, which was parked in the lot at St. Mark Coptic Orthodox Church in Burr Ridge.
Authorities are expected to argue at trial that Bassaly, who along with his mother had emigrated to the U.S. from Egypt, had been representing himself to other immigrants as a federal employee who could help fellow Egyptians attain political asylum in America.
However, Bassaly did not have a government job and had falsified information in the cases of more than 100 Egyptians who had approached him for help, according to courts records.
Authorities say that federal immigration officials had discovered what Bassaly was doing and that he was under investigation. Bassaly drove his mother to the church, intending to shoot her to "protect" her from the results of the investigation, and then kill himself, according to a letter Bassaly wrote that was later recovered by authorities.
"Every asylum case I have done is fake," wrote Bassaly, who noted there were "about 120 or 130 cases."
He wrote his conscious got the "better of me and I could not stay silent."
"I had to report everything knowing full well … most likely I will spend the rest of my life in a jail cell or get killed by someone in the Egyptian community," he wrote. "I decided to take my own life."
However, after allegedly shooting his mother, Bassaly instead called 911 to report it, according to authorities.
Clifford Ward is a freelance reporter.
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