Latest news with #hateCrime
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Yahoo
Queens driver gets 10 years in deadly road rage hate crime attack
A Queens motorist was sentenced to 10 years behind bars on Wednesday nearly two years after a road rage bias attack on another driver that quickly escalated into hateful language and deadly violence. Prosecutors initially charged Gilbert Augustin with manslaughter and assault as hate crimes in the October 2023 beating death of Jasmer Singh, 66, a Sikh man whom Augustin repeatedly derided as 'turban man' during the vicious Van Wyck Expressway attack. But Augustin pleaded guilty to second-degree assault as a hate crime, avoiding even more prison time if he had been convicted by a Queens jury on the manslaughter charge. Cops were reluctant at first to charge Augustin with a hate crime. But a grand jury investigation revealed more details about the attack that previously were not available to detectives, officials said. Outrage from the Sikh community, as well as a social media push calling for hate crime charges, encouraged prosecutors to take another look at the case, officials said. 'We hope that today's sentence provides a measure of solace to Mr. Singh's countless family members and friends and sends a clear message that we will not tolerate hate in Queens, the most diverse place in the world,' Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz said in a statement. Augustin flew into a rage Oct. 19 after his Mustang collided with the 66-year-old father of three's Toyota on the Van Wyck Expressway near Hillside Ave. in Kew Gardens, prosecutors said. The two pulled over and Augustin stormed up to Singh, who was still seated in his car with his wife, according to prosecutors. A witness observed Augustin saying, 'No police, no police,' and repeatedly referring to Singh as 'turban man,' then telling the victim he was not going to let him go home and didn't want him to call the cops, prosecutors said. Augustin reached into Singh's car and took his cell phone, so Singh got out of the Toyota to retrieve it and eventually got his phone back, according to prosecutors. As Singh walked back to his car, Augustin punched him three times in the head and face, knocking his turban off his head and sending him sprawling backward to the ground, prosecutors said. The back of Singh's head slammed into the pavement, causing a brain injury. Singh died at the hospital the next day — the same day an NYPD officer spotted Augustin sitting in his dented Mustang on 111th Ave. in Jamaica, prosecutors said. Augustin, who had a suspended license and couldn't show valid insurance, was taken into custody. Augustin denied that bigotry was a motive for the attack. 'I appreciate my family's support,' he said in court. 'I am not a hateful person.' Augustin was also sentenced to five years of postrelease supervision.
CBC
6 days ago
- CBC
Montreal police investigating after a mosque was defaced with hateful graffiti
WARNING: This story contains language and an image that is offensive. The Montreal police hate crimes unit is investigating after a mosque in the city's downtown was defaced with anti-Palestinian graffiti earlier this week. The words "F--k Gaza" were painted multiple times on the exterior walls of The Canadian Institute of Islamic Civilization, at the intersection of Belmont Street and Union Avenue, Tuesday evening. The organization that manages the mosque, the Muslim Association of Canada, said no one was injured, and that the incident isn't an isolated one. It's calling on officials to bring awareness to the growing convergence of Islamophobia and anti-Palestinian racism given heightened tensions due to the situation in Gaza. "It reflects a dangerous national climate in which mosques, Muslims, Palestinians, and Canadians who speak out for Gaza are increasingly targeted and vilified," it said in a statement. Montreal police say they are looking at surveillance footage and no arrests have been made.
Washington Post
13-06-2025
- Politics
- Washington Post
Judge says Trump cannot swiftly deport family of Boulder attack suspect
A federal judge in Colorado on Thursday said in a ruling that the Trump administration cannot rapidly deport the family of an Egyptian man charged with attacking a gathering in Boulder held in support of the release of Israeli hostages in Gaza. U.S. District Judge Gordon P. Gallagher had previously blocked federal officials from removing Hayam El Gamal, the suspected attacker's wife, and the couple's five children from the country. He had also barred officials from taking the family out of the judicial district, but by then officers had sent El Gamal and the children to a family detention facility in Texas. In a 15-page decision, Gallagher said he would transfer the case, with his orders temporarily barring deportation in place, to federal court in Texas for a decision about whether the family should be released from detention. He wrote that if the Trump administration had carried out its threats to swiftly deport El Gamal and the children to Egypt, they 'likely would have violated Ms. El Gamal's and her children's due process rights.' The government is 'constitutionally obligated' to handle proceedings fairly, he wrote. 'It therefore was and remains necessary to halt immediate deportation until the situation is figured out — to measure twice and cut once,' he wrote in the decision. The White House had no immediate response to the decision. Mohamed Sabry Soliman, 45, has been charged with a federal hate crime and state counts of attempted murder stemming from the Boulder attack, which injured at least a dozen people. He is accused of injuring people at a demonstration held June 1, with authorities alleging in court filings that Soliman used 'a makeshift blowtorch' to set people on fire. Immigration officers arrested his wife and children on June 3, and the White House tweeted that day that 'They could be deported as early as tonight.' Instead, according to the judge's ruling, officers drove them roughly two hours from Florence, Colorado, to the airport in Denver and put them on a plane to San Antonio that night, arriving shortly before midnight. The family arrived at the detention facility in the city of Dilley after 2 a.m. local time. Officials said the family had been placed into expedited removal, a fast-track process that does not involve a full hearing. In his decision, Gallagher wrote that federal law limits the fast-track process to migrants who have been in the United States for less than two years. The family arrived more than two years ago. According to court documents, Soliman moved to Colorado Springs three years ago and lived there with his wife and children. Soon after the attack, federal authorities said they had taken his family into custody, revoked their visitor visas and were expediting their deportation from the country. The Trump administration has also said they overstayed their visas, though they had applied for asylum in hopes of getting permanent refuge in the U.S. Immigration and criminal defense lawyers said they could not recall similar examples of entire families facing deportation hearings right after a relative was charged with a crime. In court filings, El Gamal was described as 'shocked to learn' that her husband had been arrested in connection with the Boulder attack. 'Mr. Soliman has not been convicted of any crime and retains the presumption of innocence until proven guilty,' attorneys wrote in a filing. 'In any event, it is patently unlawful to punish individuals for the crimes of their relatives.' The court papers said El Gamal and her children entered the U.S. in 2022 with visitor visas. The children are Egyptian citizens, while El Gamal is an Egyptian national born in Saudi Arabia, the filings said. The court documents describe El Gamal as a network engineer. Soliman filed an asylum application that had remained pending, with El Gamal and the children listed as dependents on it, the lawyers said in a June 3 filing. The Trump administration wrote in court papers that 'El Gamal and her children are being lawfully detained based on their own unlawful conduct, namely, unlawfully overstaying their visas,' rather than being punished for Soliman's alleged acts. According to a Wednesday filing from Justice Department attorneys, El Gamal and her children had been allowed to stay in the country until Feb. 26, 2023, under their visas. Instead, the filing said, they remained in the U.S. After immigration agents took El Gamal and her children into custody, they were moved to an immigration detention facility in Dilley because it was suited to house families, the federal filing said. Federal officials acknowledged that the family's immigration status 'came to light by virtue of her husband's terrorist's attack' but said that was not a defense against being detained or removed from the country. They also said El Gamal and her children were being held lawfully 'because they have been placed in removal proceedings.'
Reuters
12-06-2025
- Reuters
Vandals daub swastikas on Jewish gravestones in Moldova
CHISINAU, June 12 (Reuters) - Vandals daubed swastikas and other Nazi symbols and damaged more than 50 gravestones in the Jewish cemetery in Moldova's capital, officials said on Thursday. Forensic experts and prosecutors on Thursday sealed off the cemetery in Chisinau, once a thriving centre of Jewish culture in the Russian empire. A criminal case was opened on grounds of desecration and inciting racial hatred but no further details were provided on the incident. The cemetery was also vandalised in 2020, when 42 headstones were damaged and 30 daubed with paint. Home to 200,000 Jews a century ago, Moldova now has about 5,000. A notorious anti-Jewish pogrom in Chisinau in 1903 killed 49 people, injured 600 and destroyed hundreds of Jewish homes and shops in the city.
CTV News
07-06-2025
- Politics
- CTV News
London's commemoration of Afzaal family
Hundreds gathered at a vigil Friday night in London, Ont., to commemorate four years since the brutal killing of the Afzaal family. 'It's so important for us to remember what happened, to remember this family and recommit to standing united against all forms of hatred, including Islamophobia,' said Amira Elghawaby, a Special Representative on Combating Islamophobia. The family was out for an evening walk on June 6, 2021, when they were run over by Nathaniel Veltman, who was later convicted of first-degree murder and deemed a terrorist by the courts. 'It happened because they were Muslim which is deeply, deeply painful for Canadians across the country and of course London Muslims,' said Elghawaby. Advocates expressed events like this one help bring the community together, show solidarity and respect for human rights. 'This is really a whole of society issue that all Canadians benefit from supporting and addressing,' said Elghawaby. The Youth Coalition Combating Islamophobia organized the event, to ensure no other families are destroyed as a result of hate. 'We believe that silence is an enabler of hatred,' said Malik Khandakar, YCCI communications director. 'We feel the signs you give are an agreement and if you don't speak up against hatred this allows people to think it's ok.' Khandakar said more must be done to put an end to Islamophobia. 'We feel it needs a larger community because we can't just speak for ourselves. We need to have other people come out and gather. That's an important aspect of how we can move forward,' said Khandakar.
