NEWS: Was Religion The Motive For New Jersey Slaying?

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Over the weekend, the Associated Press wrote of the “dirty looks and shouted slurs” directed at Muslims in Jersey City following the slaughter of an Egyptian Christian man, his wife, and two young daughters, which many reports attribute to local radical Islamists upset about something the man wrote in an Internet chat room.
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What the AP conveniently ignored, however, was known and suspected radical activity in northern New Jersey's Muslim community.

The former imam at the El Tawheed Islamic Center of Jersey City, Alaa Al-Sadawi, was convicted in July 2003 of attempting to smuggle more than $650,000 in cash to the terrorist Global Relief Fund in Egypt in April 2002.

One of Al-Sadawi’s former mosque-goers was convicted last March of murdering in the name of Islam. Alim Hassan, then 31, killed his pregnant wife, her mother, and her sister on July 30, 2002. He reportedly stabbed the women more than 20 times each because they refused to convert to Islam. According to reports, Hassan prayed regularly at El-Tawheed.

Al-Sadawi and Hassan were hardly the first Muslims in the area, though, to appear on authorities’ radar.
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Each family member's bound body was found in a different room of the Oakland Avenue home. Each bled to death from stab wounds to the neck and had other knife wounds.

Money was taken from Armanious' wallet, Garas' purse had been emptied, and someone had rifled through drawers. However, a "significant" amount of jewelry was left untouched, authorities said.

The absence of money in the home and the presence of jewelry have sparked debate about a possible robbery gone bad. There was no forced entry into the home. And no religious symbols were desecrated, including tattoos each Armanious family member had on his or her wrists.

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It has been reported that Hossam Armanious was so involved in conversations on the Web site PalTalk.com that he became an administrator in one of the chat rooms.

One of his friends was quoted in a published report as saying that Hossam Armanious unintentionally slighted Muslims in a chat room on the site and that someone had threatened to "come after" him.

According to an online news article by a correspondent for the Evening Standard in England, extremist London-based Muslim Cleric Omar Bakri Mohammed makes live nightly appeals on PalTalk.com for his followers to support terrorist leader Osama bin Laden.

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Two unnamed Jersey City police officers, independent of one another, told the Hudson Reporter this past week that based on their years of experience in handling homicides and robbery cases, the murders could likely have been religious or even cult-like in nature. One officer said his reasoning comes from the fact that most investigations into homicides in any large city initially come with a solid lead pointing to low-level criminals operating within that city. However that hasn't happened in this case.


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Before the site was taken down Monday by its Minnesota hosting company, it contained photos of Hossam Armanious and Amal Garas. It called Armanious a "filthy dog" and Garas "his filthy wife," according to the paper. A screenshot of barsomyat.com was posted on another Web site, Jihadwatch.com.

"They were slaughtered along with their children as a punishment from the heavens to those who curse the most divine of all who were created," one member of barsomyat.com is quoted as writing.

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An Egyptian Christian father, Hossam Armanious, his wife and two daughters were found knifed to death in their home on Jan. 14. Police are investigating several theories, but religious tensions have been suggested as a potential motive. Armanious had been threatened during an Internet chat-room session, following his critical comments on Islam.


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A close friend of Hossam Armanious and relatives of the family murdered in New Jersey have revealed the following:

Shortly after the murders, members of the Egyptian consulate went to visit the family to encourage them to keep quiet. And many family members have obeyed, saying nothing to reporters or anyone else. However, two family members and another Copt viewed the bodies at the funeral home. One of these eyewitnesses said that he clearly saw that the family members had not suffered “stab wounds to the throat,” as the prosecutor’s report states, but rather the following:

A. Both adults, Hossam and Amal, had a horizontal slit across the throat. Below the slit, on the left, right and middle of the throat were three holes, big enough so that one could place a finger in each hole. According to the eyewitness, it was as if the assailant(s) took a knife and turned it repeatedly in a circular fashion, as if to screw holes into the victims’ necks.

B. The two young girls, Sylvia (15) and Monica (8), also had a horizontal slits in their throats, along with two holes bored below the slits, one on the right and one on the left sides of their necks. The holes were similar to those on their parents’ necks.

C. The eyewitness said although the bodies of the victims were all covered, he was able to see the arms of the little girl Monica. Although the tattoo of the cross inside Monica’s wrist was not defaced, he saw that her wrists were cut. He was not able to see the wrists of the other victims to see if the crosses on their wrists were defaced.

D. Though the family wants to reserve judgment until the results of the case are released, they did say that the way the four family members were bound and gagged and the way their throats were slit with holes carved is similar to executions that are shown on al-Jazeera. The American public is not aware of this because the details of the executions are not often described in news accounts.

Amal Garas’s father said that (contrary to many news reports and CAIR’s press release) none of the family’s jewelry was taken, and that Amal owned some quite expensive pieces that were not touched. At the time of her murder, Amal was wearing a ring worth $3,500 that was not taken.

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It is still possible that this wasn’t a Muslim hate crime. The problem is that investigators have not taken the necessary steps to ensure a fair review of the evidence. There are too many holes here, too many inconsistencies in the official story. Too many obvious tasks have not been done: an Armanious family friend with whom I spoke, who gave me names and motives of possible perpetrators, is still waiting for a call from investigators.


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