Terrorism suspect ‘scared to pray’
UNITED STATES: The suspect in a vehicle and knife attack at Ohio State University that injured 11 people said in a previous interview with the student newspaper that he was scared to pray on campus as a Muslim.
Abdul Razak Ali Artan was shot and killed by a police officer after driving into a group of people and then jumping out of the vehicle and stabbing people with a butcher knife at the Columbus campus yesterday, said Monica Moll, the university’s director of public safety.
Campus newspaper The Lantern yesterday posted on its website an interview with Artan that it had published in print in August.
In the interview, Artan, a thirdyear logistics management student, said he had recently transferred to Ohio State from Columbus State University. He talked about being a Muslim, and said Columbus State had offered more accommodations for prayer.
‘‘We had prayer rooms, like actual rooms where we could go pray,’’ he was quoted as saying.
Artan said he was scared to pray openly on campus, and feared that media portrayals of Muslims would give people the wrong idea about him.
The 18-year-old immigrant from Somalia was a lawful permanent resident of the United States, two US government sources said.
Adam Schiff, the ranking Democrat on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, said intelligence agencies were assisting the investigation.
‘‘It bears all of the hallmarks of a terror attack carried out by someone who may have been selfradicalised,’’ Schiff said.
A spokesman for Columbus’s Somali community spoke out against the attack.
‘‘I want everyone to know that we, the Somali-american community, stand shoulder to shoulder with our fellow Americans in condemning the sickening violence that took place in our city earlier today,’’ Abdi Dini told a news conference.
Of the people injured in the attack, one was critically injured, Columbus fire officials said.
The university initially reported the attack on Twitter, saying it involved an ‘‘active shooter’’. CNN aired an image from a room at Ohio State where students had barricaded a door with stacked chairs. A warning telling students to take shelter was later lifted. - AAP, Reuters