Thousands attend funeral of Muslim students killed in US

Washington, Feb 13 (IANS/EFE) Thousands of people attended the funeral of three Muslim students who were shot dead in an apartment near the campus of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill aspolice continued investigating the motive for the killings.

Mohammed Abu-Salha, father of two of the victims, Yusor Mohammad Abu-Salha, 21, and her sister Razan Mohammad Abu-Salha, 19, told reporters that the incident, which has shaken this small community near Raleigh, was a hate crime motivated by religion.

"He hates us for what we are and how we look," he quoted his daughter as saying about alleged killer Craig Stephen Hicks who turned himself in to the police after killing Deah Barakat, 23, and the two women Tuesday.

In a statement broadcast by local TV channel WRAL, Suzanne Barakat, Deah's sister, who like the two slain sisters also wears a headscarf and traditional Arab garb, urged the authorities to investigate the "senseless and heinous murders".

Barakat, a Syrian-American and second-year dental student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and Yusor Mohammad were married two-and-a-half months ago, his sister said.

Meanwhile, Hicks' wife, Karen has said that her husband had parking disputes with several neighbours while his lawyer, Rob Maitland, said that the shooting "had nothing to do with religion... but was in fact related to the long-standing parking disputes".

The police, who have asked the US Federal Bureau of Investigation to step in, said that it was still probing the motive behind the killings to determine if it was hate motivated but that it appeared to have been sparked by the parking dispute.

More than 5,000 people attended the prayer service Thursday in honour of the victims which began in a mosque and had to be moved to an athletic field at North Carolina State University in Raleigh due to the huge turnout.

Besides Mohammed Abu-Salha, Chapel Hill police Chief Chris Blue also spoke at the funeral saying that an exhaustive investigation was being carried out into the incident.

Meanwhile, the Council on American-Islamic Relations called on law enforcement authorities to address speculation about a possible bias motive in the case, given the nature of the crime.

--IANS/EFE

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