Muslim murderer’s apartment mate had warned university and police

Abdulsalam al-Zahrani, the 46-year-old Saudi Arabian graduate student at the State University of New York in Binghamton who stabbed to death his Ph.D. advisor professor emeritus Richard Antoun on Friday (see VFR’s earlier thread on this, “It’s baffling, I tell you, baffling”), had given clear indications he was dangerous. As reported in the New York Times, Zahrani often spoke to his Senegalese apartment mate about death and said he was being persecuted as a Muslim. The apartment mate, Souleymane Sakho, had complained about Zahrani’s behavior to his academic advisor and then to the head of the school’s counseling center. They did nothing. Then, ten days ago, Sakho

said he was sick of Mr. Zahrani’s constantly asking him if he was afraid of death and told him to stop. Later that night, Mr. Sakho said he told his other roommate, Luis Pena, also a graduate student, that he “had enough of the situation.” Hearing them, Mr. Zahrani came out of his bedroom and accused Mr. Sakho of threatening him.

Sakho called the police, who came to the apartment. But apparently nothing came of that either. A week later, Zahrani went to Professor Antoun’s office and murdered him with multiple stab wounds.

Let’s see. The Korean immigrant Cho Seung-Hu at Virginia Tech, the U.S.-born Muslim Major Nidal Hasan of the U.S. Army, and now the 46-year-old Saudi graduate student A. al Zahrani at SUNY Binghamton,—and how many others?—all gave ample warnings that they were dangerous, yet nothing was done. When an Arab Muslim is repeatedly asking a fellow student if he is afraid of death, and then—after the fellow student says he has had enough of the situation—accuses the fellow student of threatening him, any semi alert police would recognize that this is a potentially dangerous person and restrain him or do something about him. Ditto the university. But liberal society is incapable of defending itself from such people. They must be let alone, until they kill, whether they kill one person, as in the case of Zahrani, or 14 people, as in the case of Nidal Hasan, or 32 people, as in the case of Cho Seung-Hu. It doesn’t matter how many times such incidents happen. There is no learning curve, because nothing is every learned. Nothing can ever be learned, because if liberal institutions learned something they would have to to stop acting like liberal institutions.

Here is the Times article:

December 7, 2009
Binghamton Student Says He Warned Officials
By MICHAEL S. SCHMIDT and MICHAEL D. REGAN

VESTAL, N.Y.—In this small upstate college town, there were many who tried to comprehend how a popular 77-year-old professor who championed antiwar philosophies would have come to such a violent end: stabbed to death in his office on Friday, by, the police said, a graduate student whom he knew.

Then there were those who said they had noticed signs of erratic behavior by the suspect, a graduate student at Binghamton University, who, they said, was becoming increasingly fearful—so much so that his roommate said he had warned university officials of his concerns. [LA replies: He was becoming “fearful”—meaning fearful of the anti-Muslim bias of this racist country. Thanks, Times, we knew we could count on you.]

The suspect, Abdulsalam S. al-Zahrani, 46, remained held without bail on Sunday, charged with second-degree murder in the death of the professor, Richard T. Antoun.

The two knew each other through Binghamton’s graduate program, where the professor served on the dissertation committee for Mr. Zahrani, who is from Saudi Arabia.

On Sunday, Mr. Zahrani’s roommates—who had lived with him for about three weeks in a three-bedroom apartment in downtown Binghamton—recounted how the suspect, who spoke of financial problems, often mentioned death and said he was being persecuted because he was Muslim.

“I said he was acting oddly, like a terrorist,” said one of the roommates, Souleymane Sakho, a graduate student from Senegal. “When I informed them, it was for them to understand that the guy was violent or he may be violent.”

Mr. Sakho said that he told his academic adviser who is overseeing his dissertation about Mr. Zahrani, and that the adviser referred him to the school’s counseling center. Mr. Sakho said that the head of the counseling center told him to avoid interaction with Mr. Zahrani and said he should look to move out of the apartment.

A spokesman for Binghamton University declined to comment on what university officials may have been told by Mr. Sakho about Mr. Zahrani’s behavior, citing a continuing investigation by the district attorney of Broome County.

The district attorney, Gerald F. Mollen, declined to discuss many details of the case in a telephone interview, only saying that an autopsy performed on Dr. Antoun showed that he died of multiple stab wounds.

“There are no new details and we are not going to be providing a debriefing every minute for every development,” Mr. Mollen said.

About 10 days ago, the police were called to the three-bedroom apartment, according to Mr. Sakho. He said he was sick of Mr. Zahrani’s constantly asking him if he was afraid of death and told him to stop. Later that night, Mr. Sakho said he told his other roommate, Luis Pena, also a graduate student, that he “had enough of the situation.” Hearing them, Mr. Zahrani came out of his bedroom and accused Mr. Sakho of threatening him, Mr. Sakho said.

“I’m not the kind of person to make threats because I am a peaceful person,” said Mr. Sakho, recalling the conversation. “I just want you to stop what you are doing.”

Mr. Zahrani then called the Binghamton police, who arrived at the apartment several minutes later, Mr. Sakho said.

“I came out and wanted to explain what Zahrani was doing and they told me to go back to my room,” Mr. Sakho said.

Dr. Antoun, an anthropology professor who focused on Islamic and Middle Eastern studies, retired in 1999, becoming a professor emeritus at Binghamton, which is considered a jewel of the New York State university system. He still advised several students studying for master’s and doctoral degrees and came into the office every day, according to Nina M. Versaggi, an anthropology professor who has an office a few doors down from Dr. Antoun’s.

Dr. Antoun held season tickets to the Binghamton men’s basketball team and had plans to attend Friday night’s game. “I had just talked to him a couple of hours earlier; we ran into each other in the mail room,” said Dr. Versaggi. “We both have tickets to the basketball game and he said he planned to go to the game. Even though the team is rebuilding, he said they were showing some promise. He was just happy as usual, just a good-humored man.”

Dr. Versaggi declined to discuss many of the specifics of the events on Friday. She said that although her office is a few doors down from Dr. Antoun’s, she first learned of the stabbing when she received a phone call and was instructed to go into “lockdown mode.”

“He was a scholar in the true meaning of the word,” said Dr. Versaggi. “A very peaceful and gentle man, and he was a professor who spent his entire career working towards fairness and justice. The only firm stance he has ever taken on any issue is that he was antiwar and a peace activist. The last time I remember him protesting was against the Iraq war.”

Mr. Sakho and Mr. Pena said that Mr. Zahrani told them he had lived in Montana before returning to Binghamton to finish his doctoral thesis. They said he told them that the university had recently denied his request for financial support; they added that he never talked about Dr. Antoun.

Mr. Sakho said the last time he saw Mr. Zahrani was around 1 a.m. on Friday, when Mr. Zahrani woke him up and once again asked him if he was afraid of dying. Mr. Sakho said he did not respond to Mr. Zahrani and went back to sleep.

[end of article]

- end of initial entry -

James P. writes:

I loved this part from the article:

Mr. Sakho said that he told his academic adviser who is overseeing his dissertation about Mr. Zahrani, and that the adviser referred him to the school’s counseling center. Mr. Sakho said that the head of the counseling center told him to avoid interaction with Mr. Zahrani and said he should look to move out of the apartment.

There was obviously a ticking time bomb on campus. Even if they refused to believe that this guy was a Muslim about to go jihad, how could they not believe he was a dangerous nut? Don’t they have a better response to “ordinary crazy people” than “refer concerned students to the counseling center” and “avoid interaction with the crazy guy”? Is this what campuses have learned from Virginia Tech and other atrocities? Basically the university’s official response, via the counseling center, was “ignore it and hope the problem goes away”, which is absolutely irresponsible. Were their hands tied because the guy lived off campus?

Andrew E. writes:

Maybe al-Zahrani was lonely and just needed to learn a little Game.

LA replies:

Right. And since sexual frustration is the real source of Islamic aggression, jihad, and terrorism, it’s obvious that that what the West needs to do to solve the Islam problem is not to democratize the Muslims and build schools and sewers for them, but to teach them Game, or rather to teach it to Muslims in the West, since Game would make no sense in Muslim countries where women are sexually restricted. The U.S. government should hire Roissy to set up a Game training program for all Muslim men in America.

Rick Darby writes:

Story from the Worcester (Mass.) Telegram and Gazette:

[Prof. Antoun’s] work focused on bridging the divide between religions and cultures, particularly in the Middle East.

But the 77-year-old professor’s life ended violently Friday when he was stabbed multiple times in his campus office, allegedly by a graduate student whom he was advising on his doctoral thesis.

The student, Abdulsalam S. al-Zahrani, 46, was from Saudi Arabia. Mr. Antoun was serving on the dissertation committee for Mr. Zahrani’s graduate thesis and apparently had known him for quite some time, according to news reports. The university’s Web site says Mr. Zahrani’s doctoral thesis is called “Sacred Voice, Profane Sight: The Senses, Cosmology, and Epistemology in Early Arabic Culture.”

Mr. Zahrani was immediately arrested and charged with second-degree murder and is being held without bail. The motive for the attack is unclear.

What a perfect capsule of life in the Liberal Establishment.

Long ago, in a galaxy far away, college professors devoted themselves to transmitting knowledge and, in some cases, encouraging their students to develop the ability to think for themselves. They did not perceive their mission as bridging divides between cultures, fighting for world peace, or fiddling data to create “crises” like climate change. They thought of themselves as scholars, not world shakers.

Then we have a Muslim student — I wonder how long he’s been in graduate school? How many scholarships has he been awarded to bring Diversity to Binghamton? — writing a dissertation on fantastical academic babble, “Sacred Voice, Profane Sight: The Senses, Cosmology, and Epistomology in Early Arabic Culture.” The title simply calls out for caricature. “Ancestral Shadows, Congealed Blood: Mesopotamian Whispers, Hysteresis, and Quanta of Counter-Resonance in the Poetry of Haroun al-Rashid.”

And: “The motive for the act is unclear.” A newspaper should not act as judge and jury, of course, and the Telegram and Gazette could reasonably have confined itself to noting the charge. But to say that the motive is “unclear” is itself a judgment. Unclear to whom? There are parts of any story that are unclear, but newspaper reports don’t normally call attention to them. They describe what is known and leave it at that.

“The motive is unclear” acts as well as a signal. It tells the readers how to think about the murder. And what they must not think.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at December 08, 2009 08:57 AM | Send