DEPENDING ON THE OUTCOME OF the investigation, a recent grisly murder in Jersey City, New Jersey, may be a sign of things to come in our domestic war on terror.
On Friday, January 14, 2005, police discovered the bodies of a family of four Egyptian Copts slain in their home. Hossam Armanious, 47, his wife, Amal, 37, and their daughters Sylvia, 15, and Monica, 8, had been bound, gagged, and their throats slit.
The motive for the quadruple slaying has not yet been established. FBI agents are assisting with the investigation. Hudson County prosecutors say the killers refrained from taking expensive jewelry, but Armanious's wallet had been emptied and his pockets turned out.
"We know that money was taken," said prosecutor Edward De Fazio. "Whether that was the primary motivation, we don't know. To think that someone would commit this type of crime for a small amount of money does not make sense."
According to friends and relatives, the family was not particularly wealthy. Hossam Armanious was a headwaiter and his wife a postal clerk. Interestingly, assistant prosecutor Guy Gregory said, "It doesn't appear to be random. It appears to be a specific act. Someone was able to gain access without forcing entry."
Another possible motive that is being reviewed is religious hatred. Armanious was active in Internet chat rooms defending the Copts against Islamic extremists. The Coptic church, whose presence in Egypt goes back nearly 2,000 years, has suffered persecution off and on over the centuries, intensifying in the last 10 years. Armanious had reportedly
received a death threat online: "We will hunt you down . . . and kill you." Investigators have taken a computer from the children's bedroom. And according to the New York Post, a relative of Jersey City mayor Jerramiah Healy said there was information the murders were "religion-related."
Additional disturbing details point in this direction. First, the brutality and methodology of the crime do not fit the profile for simple robbery but rather call to mind the Islamist killings of Western hostages like Daniel Pearl in Pakistan and Nick Berg in Iraq.
In addition, the investigators acknowledge that a relative of the victims had helped prosecutors in their case against lawyer Lynne Stewart, currently on trial in Manhattan for allegedly carrying messages for her imprisoned client, the blind Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman, serving a life sentence for conspiring to blow up New York landmarks including the United Nations building.
The investigators downplay a possible connection between the Armanious case and the Stewart trial. What remains suggestive, however, is that the Armanious murder occurred in what some nickname "Terror City" because of its history of Islamic extremist activity.
Jersey City gained this reputation after the first bombing of the World Trade Center, on February 26, 1993, which was carried out by a local terrorist cell. The van used in the attack was rented in Jersey City, the bomb was built in several Jersey City apartments, and the perpetrators frequented the Jersey City mosque presided over by Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman. Indeed, Ramzi Yousef, the mastermind of the 1993 attack, made contact with followers of the blind Egyptian sheikh upon his arrival in the United States. Through the mosque, he met Mohammed A. Salameh, Nidal A. Ayyad, and Mahmud Abouhalima, all of whom participated in the attack.
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