Murder of Muslim teenager in Virginia “not a hate crime”

CAIRO – 20 June 2017: The murder of a 17-year-old Virginia Muslim is not being investigated as a hate crime, authorities said Monday, without explaining why. The death has “rattled” Northern Virginia’s Muslim community in the midst of celebrating the holy month of Ramadan, the Washington Post reported Monday.

Nabra Hassanen, 17, was attacked early Sunday morning after leaving a mosque in Sterling, Virginia, CNN reported.

Police found a body believed to be Hassanen around 3 p.m. on Sunday.

Darwin Martinez Torres, 22, has been arrested for the murder. According to CNN, Torres “saw the group walking and riding bicycles in the street and on the sidewalk. Torres became so enraged after arguing with one teen he drove up on a curb, police said. He later found the group in a nearby parking lot, chased them on foot with a baseball bat and allegedly beat Nabra.”

The CNN report added that the girl’s father believes her death was a hate crime, committed because she was wearing the abaya, a traditional black cloak.

The Egyptian-American teenager was announced dead as a result of blunt force trauma to the upper body. The investigations are ongoing, and investigators are considering the girl’s death the result of road rage rather than a hate crime.

“I don’t want any family to feel like what I feel now,” Nabra’s farther, Mohmoud Hassanen, said in statements to the Washington Post. “It’s too hard. I raised my daughter for 17 years. Somebody took her life for no reason.”

Hassanen’s murder in North Virginia comes shortly after a terrorist attack targeted Muslims after finishing their late-night prayers at mosque in north London, near Finsbury Park Station, on June 19. At least 10 civilians were hit by a van; there were no fatalities.