7 February 2011 Last updated at 18:19 ET

TV boss Muzzammil Hassan found guilty of beheading wife

Prosecutors said Hassan became enraged that wife Aasiya sought to gain control of her own life

A New York television executive has been convicted of stabbing his wife to death and beheading her.

A jury found Pakistan-born Muzzammil Hassan guilty of second-degree murder in the 2009 death of Aasiya Hassan six days after she filed for divorce.

Hassan never denied killing her but said she had abused him and that he had acted in self-defence. He served as his own lawyer during the three-week trial.

Hassan, who founded a Muslim-oriented TV network, could face life in prison.

Prosecutors argued Hassan abused his wife and planned the attack in a hallway at Bridges TV, a satellite channel he set up in 2004 in an effort to counter negative portrayals of Muslims following the 9/11 terror attacks.

He was arrested in 2009 after he walked into a police station in the city of Buffalo, in upstate New York, and told officers his wife was dead.

Mrs Hassan, 37, had filed for divorce after enduring domestic violence, her lawyer told the Buffalo News newspaper in 2009.

The couple had been married for eight years and had two children.