Lower House says triple murder of Muslims in US an act of terror

AMMAN — The Lower House on Sunday denounced the killing of three Muslim Americans in North Carolina, describing the crime as an “act of terrorism”.

Opening Sunday’s session with a statement, Lower House Speaker Atef Tarawneh said the triple murder of an Arab family in Chapel Hill is “as brutal as other terrorist crimes which we abhor and denounce”.

Tarawneh said the statement was in the name of the Chamber, calling for classifying the killing of Syrian-American Deah Barakat, his Jordanian wife, Yusor Abu-Salha and her sister Razan as an “act of terror”.

“We criminalise such acts [regardless of] the justifications given. Terrorism has no religion … fighting terror is a must … unfair and selective classification of terror is the biggest danger,” he said.

Barakat, Yusor and Razan were shot in the head at their apartment last Tuesday.

The two sisters were Jordanian, according to the Foreign Ministry.

The victims’ neighbour, Craig Stephen Hicks, was charged with three counts of murder after turning himself in and claiming he shot the three in a “dispute for parking space”.

On Thursday, Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Ashraf Khasawneh said in a statement that the ministry was closely following up on the murder investigation through the Kingdom’s embassy in Washington.