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Palestinians Want to Join Investigation of Chapel Hill Shootings
The FBI has opened an inquiry into the shootings of three young Muslims in Chapel Hill, N.C., a move that followed multiple calls this week for authorities to investigate the violence as a hate crime. And Palestinian officials are asking to join the investigation, saying that the victims were of Palestinian descent.
Police are investigating the shootings of three people — newlyweds Deah Barakat, 23, and Yusor Mohammad Abu-Salha, 21, and her sister, Razan Mohammad Abu-Salha, 19 — on Tuesday afternoon at a housing complex near the University of North Carolina.
On Friday, President Obama issued a statement on “the brutal and outrageous murders,” saying that the FBI would look to see if federal laws were broken during the shooting.
“No one in the United States of America should ever be targeted because of who they are, what they look like or how they worship,” Obama said.
Palestinian officials on Saturday branded Craig Hicks, the accused shooter, as “an American extremist and hateful racist,” according to Reuters.
“We consider it a serious indication of the growth of racism and religious extremism which is a direct threat to the lives of hundreds of thousands of American citizens who follow the Islamic faith,” the Palestinian foreign ministry said in a statement, which also called for “a serious investigation” and the involvement of Palestinian investigators.
Source: www.washingtonpost.com