Outlining a preliminary defense for the man accused of killing an American soldier and wounding another in Little Rock, Ark., the lawyer for the suspect said Thursday that his client was radicalized by Islamic fundamentalists in a Yemeni prison where he spent four months last year for overstaying his visa.

The lawyer, James E. Hensley Jr., asserted that the United States government had done nothing to free the man, Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad, 23, until his family, with the assistance of a Tennessee state legislator, intervened.

Mr. Hensley said an F.B.I. agent visited Mr. Muhammad in prison in Yemen, but only to tell him that the American government was watching him. “If you ever get out of this godforsaken place, we’ll hound you till the day you die,” Mr. Hensley asserted the agent said.

Mr. Muhammad, also known as Carlos Bledsoe, has been charged with killing Pvt. William Long and wounding Pvt. Quinton Ezeagwula as they stood outside an Army recruiting station in Little Rock on Monday. Private Ezeagwula was released from the hospital on Thursday.

The police confiscated three weapons from Mr. Muhammad, or from his truck, shortly after the shooting, including a military-style rifle and a semiautomatic handgun.

The Little Rock police say that Mr. Muhammad has acknowledged shooting the two men, saying he was a Muslim angry about the killing of Muslims by American troops in Afghanistan and Iraq. He has pleaded not guilty.

Mr. Hensley’s assertions, many of which conflicted with statements from law enforcement officials, could not be confirmed.

Officials have said Mr. Muhammad was detained in Yemen because he carried forged Somali documents, including a passport, but Mr. Hensley said that that was not true and that Mr. Muhammad had said he was never in Somalia.

Press officers for the F.B.I. and the State Department said they could not comment on Mr. Hensley’s statements.

Mr. Hensley said Mr. Muhammad was in Yemen to teach English at a camp for Afghan refugees, a position he said Mr. Muhammad got through a college exchange program in Nashville. While there, he married a Yemeni woman, whose name the lawyer did not know. Mr. Muhammad also met children who had lost limbs in the war and women who asserted that they had been raped by American troops.

Mr. Hensley suggested that the camp made Mr. Muhammad more susceptible to the influence of Islamic militants in prison, where, he says, Mr. Muhammad was tortured. Asked if Mr. Muhammad had stayed in contact with any militants, Mr. Hensley said that he did not know but that it was highly unlikely.