Father of slain US Muslim soldier says Trump has 'a dark heart'

Washington, Aug 1: Khizr Khan, the father of an American Muslim soldier slain in Iraq, said on Sunday that Donald Trump has "a dark heart", in response to the US Republican presidential candidate's controversial comeback to the speech he gave on July 28 at the Democratic National Convention. [Khizr Khan shakes US presidential race]

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"He has a dark heart...he is not suitable, not fit, even for the candidacy of the stewardship that he is seeking," said Khan, an attorney and Pakistani immigrant to the US in a statement on CNN's "State of the Union" program.

The soldier's father was reacting to Trump's remarks about his speech to the Democratic National Convention this week in Philadelphia, at which Hillary Clinton was officially nominated Democratic party's candidate for the White House, EFE news reported.

In his speech, Khan, accompanied by his wife Ghazala, slammed Trump for his idea of temporarily banning Muslims from entering the United States to deal with the threat of jihadist terrorism.

Trump has "sacrificed nothing and no one", Khan, whose son Humayun, a captain in the US Army, died in a car-bomb attack in 2004 in Iraq, said at the convention,

In an interview that aired on Saturday on the ABC network, Trump answered that he has made "a lot of sacrifices" and asked if "Hillary's script writers" wrote Khan's speech.

The magnate also suggested that perhaps his wife didn't speak together with her husband because she probably "wasn't allowed to", an apparent reference to her condition as a Muslim woman.

"If you look at his wife, she was standing there. She had nothing to say. She probably, maybe she wasn't allowed to have anything to say," EFE news quoted Trump as saying.

Khan's wife Ghazala said on Friday during an interview on the MSNBC network that she didn't speak because the death of her son still hurts her deeply and she can't help being overcome by emotion when she sees his photo.

Khan said on CNN that the fact that Trump has no respect for a Gold Star mother "is insulting, foolish and ignorant".

"Running for President is not an entitlement to disrespect Gold Star families and (a) Gold Star mother, not realising her pain," the attorney told ABC News.

IANS