RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) – Muslim groups planned to take their demands for a federal hate-crime investigation of three young Muslims slain in North Carolina to the White House on Friday.
The groups said on social media that they would hold prayers in front of the White House on the Muslim Sabbath, hours after the FBI’s North Carolina office said agents were launching an inquiry parallel to a police homicide investigation.
Craig Stephen Hicks, 46, is charged with first-degree murder. Police say he shot 23-year-old Deah Shaddy Barakat; his 21-year-old wife, Yusor Mohammad Abu-Salha; and her sister, 19-year-old Razan Mohammad Abu-Salha over a long-standing parking dispute in the condominium complex where he lived with the newlywed couple. But the families of the victims have said they were gunned down because of their religion.
“This has hate crime written all over it,” the women’s father, Mohammad Yousif Abu-Salha said.
The FBI said Thursday that its preliminary inquiry seeks “to determine whether or not any federal laws were violated” while it continues to help police in the college town of Chapel Hill process evidence for their homicide investigation.