ABHA/WASHINGTON, 6 December — The US Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Anti-Discrimination League (ADL) have announced a cash reward of $2,500 for anyone who comes forward with information leading to the arrest of two men who assaulted a Saudi student on Sept. 17.
Police have thus far been unable to track down the assailants of Sari Hasan Al-Asiri, 20, a student at the University of California, Santa Barbara.
The student was out walking late at night near his flat when two armed men stabbed him several times and then kicked him repeatedly as he lay on the ground.
The ADL considers the incident to have been a hate crime carried out because of the student’s ethnic background.
"Although the hate crimes have increased since the Sept. 11 terror attacks, this is the most violent," said Julie Salton, president of the ADL in Santa Barbara, on Tuesday.
She expressed her hope that the announcement of the reward would make people realize that hate crimes would be treated seriously by the authorities.
Sari’s father Hasan Abdullah Al-Asiri, who is an employee of the Islamic Development Bank in Jeddah, said his son was studying computer science in Santa Barbara at the time of the attack.
Sari returned home from the United States and subsequently enrolled at a university in Amman.
He is still suffering from the mental distress as a consequence of the assault and continues to receive treatment, the father added.
Sari was more shocked by the humiliating and discriminating treatment he received after the attack than by the attack itself, and he was even ordered to undergo a strip search at a US airport on his way out of the country, the father said.
In a further sad twist to his tragic story, the student traveled to Amman to study because he failed to get a place at King Abdul Aziz University in Jeddah.
