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| Clearly a hate crime, but is it a "Hate Crime"? | ||
| 2004-12-21 | ||
Slaying of woman baffles friends The 2200 block of North Sibley Street is a typical suburban street ... which makes Friday's slaying of pregnant teacher Iman Muhanna Mohammed all the more baffling. No arrests have been made, and the Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Office parted with few new details Monday. Among them were the autopsy results that Mohammed, 42, was stabbed 33 times in her chest, shoulders, back and neck, including some defensive cuts.
Fakhri Mohammed, 45, found his wife's body Friday about 11:15 a.m. when he returned home after driving the couple's two children to school at the Muslim Academy in Harvey. Mohammed, a taxi driver, and his wife, a teacher on maternity leave from the school, were both U.S. citizens born in Palestinian territory. Lee said Mohammed and the rest of the family are cooperating with the investigation. Iman Mohammed was a sister-in-law of Abdelhaleem Ashqar, an Alexandria, Va., resident who is a minor candidate in the Jan. 9 Palestinian presidential election to choose a successor to Yasser Arafat. Ashqar, who is married to a sister of Iman Mohammed's, faces federal racketeering charges in connection with alleged fund raising for the Palestinian group Hamas, which the U.S. government has identified as a terrorist organization. Lee said detectives have no evidence that the killing was a hate crime. The FBI is monitoring the investigation in case such evidence surfaces, because of Iman Mohammed's Palestinian heritage, spokeswoman Sheila Thorne said. Lee said no valuables seem to have been taken from the Mohammed home and there was no signs of forced entry (and) the evidence so far points to a struggle confined to the bedroom where she was found. The Mohammeds were a popular couple who met in the early 1990s during a trip Fakhri Mohammed made to the Gaza Strip, where his future wife, then Iman Jamal, lived, relatives said. He traveled back and forth during their courtship, and they returned to the United States together after marrying in 1995. Lee said Mohammed's ex-wife, who lives in the New Orleans area, also is cooperating with the investigation. As the last person known to see Iman Mohammed alive, Fakhri Mohammed remains a possible suspect in the case, but Lee said Mohammed is cooperating extensively and indicated that detectives have no evidence against him.
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| Posted by:glenmore |
| #3 If I take it in the neck 33 times, will the FBI be monitoring my case because of my Dirty White Boy "heritage"? Yeah, I didn't think so... |
| Posted by: tu3031 2004-12-21 3:27:46 PM |
| #2 At least they do not claim dual citizenship, in Sweden. |
| Posted by: john 2004-12-21 3:12:33 PM |
| #1 Mohammed, a taxi driver, and his wife, a teacher on maternity leave from the school, were both U.S. citizens born in Palestinian territory. Well that's a rather unusual way of putting it. Are they....."immigrants"??? |
| Posted by: Bomb-a-rama 2004-12-21 11:09:47 AM |