Oct 10, 2008  |  By: LOU CHIBBARO JR  | COMMENTS     

Two men who identified themselves as Muslims were charged with assaulting a gay man in Georgetown after one of them said gay people are stoned to death in his home country in the Middle East, according to a police report.

A 23-year-old Georgetown University medical student was struck in the face Oct. 3 with a bottle wielded by one of the two men charged in the case, a police source said. The alleged attack occurred at about 3 a.m. along the C&O Canal.

The student was treated and released from Georgetown University Hospital.
In a separate incident that unfolded at about 2 a.m. Sept. 27, police arrested an off-duty security guard for allegedly shouting anti-gay names and throwing a brick at two gay men at 15th and P streets, N.W.

The men were walking home from gay bar Halo while holding hands, one of the men told the Blade.

The men identified the assailant as a security guard who had been working at the soon-to-open Metropole Apartments, an upscale condominium at 15th and P streets, N.W., which is located less than one block from Halo.

The United States Attorney’s office later dropped the charge against the security guard. A spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s office said he was making inquiries to find out why the office “no papered” the case, but he did not resolve the issue by Blade deadline.

Matt Hagen, a spokesperson for the Metropole condominium, said the security guard arrested in the incident was “terminated” by a security company that Metropole retained to provide security for the building.

“He definitely no longer works there,” Hagen said.

The two incidents, which D.C. police listed as anti-gay hate crimes, took place after about 200 people participated in a Sept. 26 candlelight vigil and march in the city’s Shaw neighborhood to honor gay murder victim Tony Randolph Hunter.

Hunter, 37, died Sept. 17, 10 days after he was attacked and beaten by four unidentified men at Eighth and N streets, N.W., as he and a friend left their car to go to gay club BeBar about one block away.

Police said they had insufficient evidence to label Hunter’s murder a hate crime, saying the motive appeared to be robbery.

Organizers of the local group Gays & Lesbians Opposing Violence said Hunter’s murder and the two most recent incidents targeting gays in Georgetown and at 15th and P streets followed about a half-dozen other anti-gay bias assaults in the city during the past year.

“I believe violence is disproportionately impacting our community,” said Chris Farris, a GLOV co-founder. “But it’s also important to recognize that violent crimes are victimizing the GLBT community regardless of whether they are officially designated as hate crimes.”

D.C. police have said crime statistics show that anti-gay hate crimes in the city have remained stable or have dropped slightly during the past few years, despite what some people have described as a flurry of new cases during the past few months.

‘Being gay is wrong’

The Georgetown attack last week appears to be the first known time gay people have been targeted in the Washington area by people who asserted they dislike gays because homosexuality is forbidden by their Muslim faith.
Avy Skolnik, coordinator of national programs for the New York City Gay & Lesbian Anti-Violence Project, said that while gay groups in Europe have reported anti-gay assaults by Islamic immigrants, he knew of no such cases in the U.S.

Police and court records identify the men charged in the Georgetown case as Saad Elarch, 22, and Ruddad Abdulgader, 19. Court records list Abdulgader as a resident of Alexandria, Va., and Elarch as a Michigan resident. Both men have been charged with bias-related assault with a dangerous weapon.
At a court hearing Oct. 4, an attorney representing Elarch said the two men have stated they are foreign nationals from Morocco.

D.C. Superior Court Judge Frederick Weisberg ruled Wednesday that Elarch and Abdulgader would remain in jail until tried, denying requests from their attorneys that they be released.

Weisberg’s ruling came after courtroom revelations that both defendants have prior felony convictions in Virginia. Elarch was convicted of a drug-related offense and Abdulgader was convicted in a mob assault case.

It was unclear Wednesday how Elarch and Abdulgader came to the U.S. and why the earlier convictions did not prompt their deportation.

The judge’s decision to keep both defendants in jail prompted Elarch’s sister, who was in court, to faint. Medical personnel took her from the courtroom in a wheelchair.

Elarch and Abdulgader are next expected in court Nov. 12 for a status hearing. The case is slated to go before a grand jury.

According to a police report filed in court, the gay man who was struck with the bottle and a friend had been walking along the C&O Canal near the 1100 block of 33rd Street, N.W., at about 3 a.m. Oct. 3, when they were approached by Elarch and Abdulgader.

The report, ...