NEW YORK : A US judge sentenced an elderly Pakistani-American to 18 years to life in prison Wednesday for murdering his wife in New York, after she made him lentils instead of goat for dinner, according to American media reports.  
Noor Hussain, 75, was convicted of second degree murder for killing Nazar, 66, in April 2011 as she lay in bed in their Brooklyn apartment after subjecting her to years of abuse. But he proclaimed his innocence, saying he did not kill his wife.
‘Please do me justice and hang me. Give me electric shocks so I can die,’ he told the judge in Punjabi during a 10-minute outburst punctuated by sobs. ‘They made up the story and put me in jail.’ Despite gruesome photos that showed injuries and blood splatters consistent with getting repeatedly struck with a stick.
, Hussain insisted to officials that his wife died of cancer and a heart attack.
‘There’s no witness, no complainant in this case,’ he said in Brooklyn Supreme Court.’I never fought with my wife. There’s no witness who can say they saw the fight.’
Hussain admitted only to striking her with a wooden stick after she made lentils rather than the goat dinner he wanted. He maintained she ‘disrespected’ him by swearing and believed he was entitled to ‘discipline’ his wife of 21 years. But prosecutor Sabeeha Madni said the spousal abuse went on for years. She also noted that in a pre-sentencing letter, the defendant’s lawyer wrote he’s unhappy with the lack of halal food in jail.
Hussain refused to admit he killed his wife, saying she died of cancer and a heart attack. ‘When she left Pakistan, she entered a life of solitary confinement,’ Madni said of the victim. ‘There are no mitigating factors — not his age, not his inability to speak English and certainly not his dislike to the food in prison.’
Justice Matthew D’Emic acknowledged that Hussain will die incarcerated no matter what punishment he gets for the murder conviction. ‘I’m surprised by the defendant’s protestation that there was no evidence in this case, given the medical examiner’s testimony,’ he said before meting out a sentence that’s slightly longer than the minimum the law allows. D’Emic reached the verdict after the bench trial ended in May. He wasn’t swayed by the defence contention this was manslaughter, not intentional murder, and that the beatdown was part of Hussain’s culture. In his desperate diatribe, the defendant prayed and made repeated mentions to his religion. ‘I’m a true Muslim,’ he said. ‘Day and night, I recite the holy Quran.’