Monday, March 26, 2012

Shaima Alawadi, 32 Muslim Woman Killed in San Diego El Cajon Hate Crime Victim Brutally Beaten


Steve Klein a Key Instigator on Coptic Satellite Al-Tareeq ATVSAT

Peter King McCarthy of our times.
David Caton anti-Muslim Alarmist.

EL CAJON, Calif. (AP) — Iraq's foreign minister said Monday the body of an Iraqi-American woman who was found brutally beaten next to a threatening note calling her a terrorist will be flown to Baghdad as lawmakers in her native country demanded a thorough investigation.
Shaima Alawadi, 32, was taken off life support on Saturday, three days after her 17-year-old daughter found her unconscious in the dining room of the family's El Cajon home in suburban San Diego. The note said: "Go back to your country, you terrorist."
"The government has ordered to transport her body from California to Baghdad," Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari said when asked about the death at a news conference for the Arab League summit in Baghdad. He declined further comment.
Investigators said they're exploring all aspects of her slaying, including the possibility that the attack was a hate crime.
Alawadi's father is Sayed Nabeel Alawadi, a Shiite cleric in Iraq, a Muslim leader in Michigan told the Detroit Free Press on Sunday. "Everybody is outraged," Imam Husham Al-Husainy of the Karbalaa Islamic Education Center in Dearborn said. "This is too evil, too criminal."
Reaction in Baghdad was muted, though some lawmakers pressed for answers. Government offices were closed, and newspapers were not printing this week for the diplomatic summit.
"We deplore this hideous crime that took place in a country calls itself the land of democracy, freedoms and freedom of religious. The parliament will take a serious position on this. Iraqi Foreign Affairs Ministry must now officially ask the U.S. Embassy and the Department of State for more details on this hideous crime," said Aliyah Nisayef, an Iraqi female lawmaker.
Lawmaker Haider al-Mulla, a Shiite from the Sunni-dominated Iraqiya political party, also asked that the U.S. government step into the investigation.
"If the investigation reveals that the attack was a hatred crime, then U.S. authorities should take measures to protect all Iraqi refugees on American soil," al-Mulla said.
The victim's daughter, Fatima Al Himidi, told KUSI-TV in San Diego that her mother had been beaten on the head repeatedly with a tire iron, and the note was next to her. Police said the family had found a similar, threatening note earlier this month but did not report it to authorities.
Hanif Mohebi, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations' San Diego chapter, said family members told him they dismissed the initial note as a prank.
Family members told Mohebi they arrived in the San Diego area in 1995, lived in Dearborn, Mich., from 2005 to 2008 and returned to San Diego.
"What I got from the family members was: 'We came (to the United States) for a better life, for safety, to get away from violence, to be free,'" Mohebi said.
Hayder Al-Zayadi, a family friend, told the Free Press that Alawadi moved to the United States in 1993 with her family and was part of a wave of Shiite Muslim refugees who fled to Michigan after Saddam Hussein cracked down on an uprising in 1991.
After living in Dearborn for a few years, she moved to the San Diego area in 1996, graduated from high school and became a housewife raising five children, Al-Zayadi said.
Al-Zayadi said Alawadi's brothers worked for the U.S. Army, serving as cultural advisers to train soldiers who were going to be deployed to the Middle East. Another family friend told U-T San Diego that Alawadi's husband had a similar job.
Flowers were set on the doorstep of the home Monday. One of the glass panels on a sliding back patio door was boarded up with wood. The backyard overlooks a middle school.
Neighbors said the family had moved in about two months ago. Friends and neighbors said Alawadi wore a hijab, the Islamic head scarf.
Alvin Luckenbach, who lives next door, exchanged pleasantries with Alawadi and her husband. She recently apologized for her kids making noise playing basketball on Alawadi's back patio.
"They were always nice," Luckenbach said.
Dawud Walid, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations' Michigan chapter, said Alawadi's death was a primary topic of conversation among speakers and attendees Sunday evening at the organization's annual banquet in the Detroit suburb of Dearborn. He and others compared her slaying to that of Trayvon Martin, the unarmed Florida teen shot by a neighborhood watch volunteer and whose case has ignited racial tensions.
"Treyvon was black wearing a hoodie. Shaima was wearing a hijab," Walid said. "It's the same racist principle at play that killed both of these individuals."
Others were more guarded.
"We don't want to jump to any conclusions and say it's a hate crime when there is still is a lot of investigation to be done," said Edgar Hopida, spokesman for CAIR in San Diego.
El Cajon, east of San Diego, is home to one of the largest Iraqi communities in the United States, including Muslims and Chaldean Christians.

El Cajon police investigators have interviewed family members and served a search warrant at the home where an Iraqi immigrant was found severely beaten with a threatening note left nearby.
Chief Jim Redman said investigators strongly believe the death of Shaima Alawadi was an isolated incident.
Alawadi was found with a severe head injury in the dining room of the family's rental home at 11:15 a.m. on March 21 by her 17-year-old daughter. A threatening note was found near her but officials refused to release the contents.
On Saturday, the 32-year-old mother was removed from life support.
Alawadi, an Iraqi immigrant, moved in to the rental home on Skyview Street two months ago with her husband and their five children ranging in ages from 7 to 17.
At a Lakeside mosque Sunday friends remembered Alawadi as a warm, loving woman who was a wonderful mother. They were also concerned about the contents of the threatening note.
A spokesperson for the local chapter of the Counsel of American-Islamic Relations said he was concerned the beating may be a hate crime.
"The body was found with a note that essentially says, 'You guys are terrorists, go back home, you don't belong here.' That's the message," said CAIR Executive Director Hanif Mohebi.
“Based on the contents of the note, we are not ruling out the possibility that this may be a hate crime,” Redman said adding that homicide investigators are in the early stages of the case and have not drawn any conclusions.
The medical examiner has sealed the report on the case at the investigators' request. While Redman confirmed Alawadi died of a severe head injury, he would not discuss what weapon was used.
FBI investigators have offered to help in the investigation, the chief said.
They have interviewed all of the family members including Alawadi's husband and say there is no known history of domestic violence in the family and no record of previous police calls from the address.

EL CAJON, Calif. — A 32-year-old woman from Iraq who was found severely beaten next to a threatening note saying "go back to your country" died on Saturday.
Hanif Mohebi, the director of the San Diego chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said he met with Shaima Alawadi's family members in the morning and was told that she was taken off life support around 3 p.m.
"The family is in shock at the moment. They're still trying to deal with what happened," Mohebi said.
Alawadi, a mother of five, had been hospitalized since her 17-year-old daughter found her unconscious Wednesday in the family's house in El Cajon, police Lt. Steve Shakowski said.
The daughter, Fatima Al Himidi, told KUSI-TV her mother had been beaten on the head repeatedly with a tire iron, and that the note said "go back to your country, you terrorist."
Addressing the camera, the tearful daughter asked: "You took my mother away from me. You took my best friend away from me. Why? Why did you do it?"
Police said the family had found a similar note earlier this month but did not report it to authorities.
Al Himidi told KGTV-TV her mother dismissed the first note, found outside the home, as a child's prank.
A family friend, Sura Alzaidy, told UT San Diego () that the attack apparently occurred after the father took the younger children to school. Alzaidy told the newspaper the family is from Iraq, and that Alawadi is a "respectful modest muhajiba," meaning she wears the traditional hijab, a head scarf. http://bit.ly/GYbfB7

Source: Officials Won't Release Note Found in Iraqi Woman's Death | NBC San Diego

Source: Officials Won't Release Note Found in Iraqi Woman's Death | NBC San Diego
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