Muhammad Released From Hospital in Wheelchair, Avoids Speaking to Media

Nation of Islam preacher Khallid Abdul Muhammad left the hospital in a wheelchair Friday, six days after being wounded in an ambush.

Muhammad, 46, former spokesman for the black Muslim group, was shot in the legs Sunday after giving a speech at UC Riverside. Four bodyguards and a bystander also were wounded.

James Edward Bess, 49, a defrocked minister of the Nation of Islam, pleaded not guilty to charges of attempted murder and assault. Police believe he acted alone.

Muhammad left Riverside Community Hospital without speaking to reporters, spirited out through a garage entrance in a van, its windows covered. Three or four security guards accompanied him, a hospital official said.

Robert Krull, the hospital’s vice president for administration, told reporters he did not know where Muhammad was going.

Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan canceled a news conference scheduled for Friday morning in Las Vegas. Farrakhan suspended Muhammad as his senior aide after a November speech in which Muhammad called Jews “the bloodsuckers” of the black community, criticized the Pope and urged the killing of South African whites.

Doctors removed two 9-millimeter pistol bullet fragments from just below Muhammad’s left knee in a two-hour operation. A wound to his right leg did not require surgery.