US: A US jury has handed down a death sentence in the first clear conviction for a racially-motivated hate crime committed in revenge for the September 11th attacks, writes Ian Kilroy.
Frank Silva Roque (44) was given the death sentence on Thursday for the murder of Sikh immigrant Mr Balbir Singh Sodhi, whom he mistook for an Arab and gunned down outside an Arizona petrol station four days after the 2001 attacks on New York and Washington.
"Sodhi was killed for no other apparent reason than that he was dark-skinned and wore a turban," the local county attorney, Mr Richard M Romley, said.
Having shot Mr Sodhi outside the Sodhi family petrol station in the town of Mesa, Arizona, on September 15th, 2001, Mr Roque then drove about 10 miles to where he fired more shots at a Lebanese-American man working at another petrol station.
Roque then drove on to a house occupied by an Afghan family, firing more shots in his third attack of the day. No one apart from Mr Sodhi was hurt in the rampage, however.
While being arrested at the mobile home in which he lived, Mr Roque shouted, "I'm an American. Arrest me and let those terrorists run wild."
Roque had a record of violence against his wife and children and was deemed to be of "borderline intelligence" by a psychiatrist during the trial, which took place in Phoenix, Arizona.
The Sodhi case is just one of many hate crimes that have been committed in the US since the September 11th attacks of 2001. According to statistics compiled by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, such crimes against Muslims and Arabs in the US shot up by 1,700 per cent in 2001.
The FBI and Justice Department are investigating approximately 40 other alleged hate crimes tied to the September 11th attacks. These include the shooting dead of an Egyptian shop owner in California and the murder of a Pakistani immigrant in Texas in the weeks after 9/11.
The number and ferocity of the attacks prompted President Bush to visit the Islamic Centre of Washington a few weeks after the attack to urge Americans not to harass Muslims and Arab-Americans living in the US. Now some Islamic organisations are calling for financial support for the families of hate crimes inspired by the events of September 11th.
