UAE officials in Ohio to seek shooting answers

Embassy staff act on behalf of family of Emirati student

ABU DHABI // Embassy officials met authorities in the American state of Ohio yesterday to discuss the killing of an Emirati student by a police officer.

The Ohio bureau of criminal investigation said the Embassy representatives would act on behalf of Saif Nasser Mubarak Al Ameri’s family. The Summit County medical examiner said Al Ameri’s remains were collected by a funeral home on Tuesday after a post- mortem examination revealed the cause of the 26-year-old’s death to be a gunshot wound to the head and that the death was a homicide.

The bureau said Al Ameri had been driving a 2009 Toyota Camry erratically on the Ohio Turnpike in the city of Hudson on Sunday before crashing his vehicle and fleeing into woods.

When a Hudson police officer found him about a kilometre away a struggle allegedly ensued, leading to Al Ameri being shot.

The officer was treated for minor injuries and was on paid leave pending the results of an investigation.

William Lubinger, director of communications at Case Western Reserve University School of Law, confirmed Al Ameri was a law student at the university. Thousands of messages flooded in on social media on Tuesday as word of his death spread.

On Twitter and Facebook, people expressed their grief and offered condolences, with most using an Arabic hashtag that translates to “Saif Nasser is in the protection of Allah”.

Hudson, with a population of 22,000, is in north-eastern Ohio, about 50km from Cleveland, the state’s largest city.