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Dylann Roof Loses Bid to Fire Jewish, Indian Lawyers

A federal appeals court has denied white supremacist Dylann Roof's request to replace his Jewish and Indian lawyers.
Image: Dylann Roof
Dylann Roof is escorted into the court room at the Charleston County Judicial Center to enter his guilty plea on murder charges in state court for the 2015 shooting massacre at a historic black church, in Charleston, South Carolina on April 10, 2017.Grace Beahm / Pool via Reuters file
/ Source: The Associated Press

COLUMBIA, S.C. — A federal appeals court on Tuesday denied white supremacist Dylann Roof's request to replace his Jewish and Indian lawyers who are appealing his death sentence for a racist massacre in South Carolina.

A day after Roof filed his handwritten appeal, the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals issued a one-page, 11-word denial: "The court denies the motion for substitution of counsel on appeal."

Related: Dylann Roof's Friend Sentenced to 27 Months in Prison

Image: Dylann Roof
Dylann Roof is escorted into the court room at the Charleston County Judicial Center to enter his guilty plea on murder charges in state court for the 2015 shooting massacre at a historic black church, in Charleston, South Carolina on April 10, 2017.Grace Beahm / Pool via Reuters file

Roof wrote in his appeal: "It will be impossible for me to trust two attorneys that are my political and biological enemies."

Roof was sentenced to death in January after being convicted of hate crimes in the killings of nine black worshippers at Charleston's Emanuel AME Church in June 2015.