The Egyptian embassy in Washington is following updates in the investigation of the kidnapping and alleged killing of an Egyptian-American Muslim girl, Nabra Hassanen, Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Ahmed Abou Zeid said Tuesday in an official statement.
Abou Zeid explained that the incident happened when someone mocked the victim and four of her friends at a fast food restaurant, after the five friends finished praying at a mosque in the US state of Virginia.
The alleged killer was watching the victim and her friends after they left the restaurant, and then hit the victim with a baseball bat, “repeating racial words against Muslims and Arabs, and he then kidnapped the victim in his car,” the statement added. After that, the police found her remains five kilometres away from the location of the incident.
Egypt’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson offered condolences to the family of the victim.
US local media said officers arrested a 22-year-old Darwin Martinez Torres, after finding Nabra’s body Sunday afternoon. Torres has been charged with murder in connection to the case. On Monday, police said that “the autopsy results show Nabra suffered from blunt force trauma to the upper body.”
Detectives told Nabra’s mother that the teenager was struck with a metal bat, The Washington Post reported.
The number of anti-Muslim incidents in the US jumped 57% in 2016, going 2,213 incidences up from 1,409 in 2015, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) said in a report issued in May.
