Yaser Said, Wanted for Honor Killing 2 Teenage Daughters, Captured in Texas
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Law enforcement never gave up the pursuit for 12 years
by Meira Svirsky August 27, 2020
Clarion Project
Sarah (L) and Amina Said (Photo: Facebook)
Yaser Said, one of the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted Fugitives, was taken into custody Wednesday after a 12-year manhunt.
Said, now 63, was arrested for allegedly killing his two teenage daughters, 18-year-old Amina and 17-year-old Sarah, on New Year’s Day 2008.
Said’s son, Islam, and his brother, Yassim, were also apprehended and are accused of helping Said evade arrest.
Said was arrested in Justin, Texas, a short distance away from Irving, Texas where the murders took place.
Amina and Sarah, both high school students at the time, were found dead in a taxi their father had borrowed shortly after 911 received a call from Sarah who said that her father had shot her and she was dying.
The tragic story gripped the nation at the time. In 2014, a movie titled “The Price of Honor” was released about the story (see the trailer below).
Said, who was originally from Egypt, had a history of violence and alleged sexual assault of his daughters. He was described as controlling and engaged in sophisticated surveillance of them and his wife, Patricia Owens, the girls’ mother.
Owens, who divorced Said in 2009, said although Said was not religious, he was obsessed that the girls were “becoming too American.”
But what seemed to enrage him the most was when he found out that the girls had boyfriends. A friend of Sarah reported that Sarah told her that Said had threatened to put a bullet in her sister’s head because of the “offense.”
Another friend reported that Amina had come to school with welts all over her body and that Said had kicked her in the face another time when he found notes from her boyfriend.
A male friend of Sarah said, “She always used that term, ‘He would kill me, I would be dead,'” referring to what would happen if her father knew of their friendship.
The situation reached a critical level a week before Christmas in 2007, prompting Owens to take the girls and flee the state. They rented an apartment in Tulsa under an assumed name.
However, the family returned to their home in Lewisville, Texas on New Year’s Eve after Owen’s received assurances from Said’s family that they shouldn’t fear him and that the family would protect them. They offered to have Said stay with them and not in the house with Owens and the girls.
This is quite typical in honor killings, for the perpetrator, and even other members of the extended family, to promise the victim(s) would be safe if they came home. Then, immediately upon their return, they are beaten to death, set on fire, or otherwise murdered. Search this and my other blog for 'Honor killings' and 'honour killings'.
There is no doubt that others on the family were involved in planning this murder, and in the hiding of Said for the past 12 years.
Amina particularly wanted to finish her last year of high school in Lewisville and was worried that going to a new school in Tulsa might affect the full scholarship she had been offered to Texas Tech University.
On New Year’s Day, Said invited the girls to go out to eat and then allegedly shot them in a taxicab he had borrowed from a friend at an Irving hotel.
Owns reports that in the years following the murders, she was harassed by Said’s family and subjected to constant threats by them. She said they bombarded the media with stories that the girls were going to bars and sexually active as a cover for Said’s behavior.
She also reported that after the murders, someone broke into her house and stole all the birth certificates and passports of her children. Soon after, she says, the family took her mentally handicapped son and sent him to Egypt.
She says there he was brainwashed into thinking that his mother was responsible for his sisters’ deaths.
Matt DeSarno, special agent in charge for the FBI Dallas field office, declined to give details of how authorities found Said after so many years, simply saying that they relied on “good old-fashioned, aggressive, initiative-based police work.”
DeSarno did say,
“The FBI-led Dallas Violent Crimes Task Force has worked tirelessly to find Yaser Abdel Said. These experienced investigators never gave up on their quest to find him and pledged to never forget the young victims in this case. Said was placed on the Ten Most Wanted Fugitives List nearly six years ago for the heinous act he committed against his daughters. His capture and arrest bring us one step closer to justice for Amina and Sarah. We want to thank our partners at the Irving Police Department for working with us to apprehend this dangerous individual.”
Sarno said that law enforcement had followed leads all around the world on the case and related that one officer who had been working on the case had pushed off her retirement because of it.
Irving police Chief Jeff Spivey noted,
“On January 1, 2008, the Irving Police Department opened a murder investigation after two young girls were found shot to death. Since that night, the members of the Irving Police Department and our partners with the Dallas FBI have tirelessly pursued justice for Amina and Sarah. Even after 12 years of frustration and dead ends, the pursuit for their killer never ceased. Today’s arrest of their father, Yaser Said, brings us closer to ensuring justice is served on their behalf.”
Erdogan handing out Turkish passports to senior Hamas terrorists
Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan (r) and Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Istanbul, Feb. 1, 2020.
(AP/Presidential Press Service)
A known terrorist sought by the U.S. was among the Hamas members who met with the Turkish leader.
By Paul Shindman, World Israel News, August 27, 2020
A senior Israeli diplomat slammed Turkey Wednesday for issuing passports to a dozen Hamas members that will allow them to easily move around the world to conduct terrorist activities.
Israel’s charge d’affaires Roey Gilad told Reuters that Israel informed Turkey last year that Hamas was carrying out “terror-related activity” in Istanbul.
However, Turkish leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan has hosted the Hamas leadership twice this year, the latest being a meeting last weekend in Istanbul.
Gilad said the Turkish government was giving citizenship and passports to Hamas members that would allow them to use Turkey as a base of operations, but he didn’t expect any response to Israel’s formal complaints.
“Judging by the last experience we had by presenting a well-based portfolio to the government… and getting no reply, I must say I don’t have high hopes that something will be done this time,” Gilad told Reuters.
Gilad posted a picture of Erdogan meeting with the Hamas leadership last weekend and pointed out Hamas deputy leader Saleh al-Arouri sitting near the Turkish leader.
“US has designated him a senior terrorist and has a $5m bounty on his head but Erdogan hosts him openly,” Gilad tweeted.
The U.S. State Department reacted angrily to the meeting, slamming Erdogan for hosting known terrorists.
“The United States strongly objects to Turkish President Erdogan hosting two Hamas leaders in Istanbul on August 22. Hamas is designated as a terrorist organization by the U.S. and EU and both officials hosted by President Erdogan are Specially Designated Global Terrorists,” State Department spokesperson Morgan Ortagus said in a statement.
Ortagus said there was a reward out for information on one of the Hamas terrorists at the meeting who is wanted “for his involvement in multiple terrorist attacks, hijackings, and kidnappings.”
“President Erdogan’s continued outreach to this terrorist organization only serves to isolate Turkey from the international community, harms the interests of the Palestinian people and undercuts global efforts to prevent terrorist attacks launched from Gaza,” Ortagus said.
Last week the Telegraph in London reported that it received copies of Turkish documents confirming that 12 members of a Hamas terror cell had either received Turkish citizenship and passports or were in the process of getting them.
Both the U.S. and U.K. have listed Hamas as a terrorist group, while Turkey, despite being a NATO member, calls it a legitimate political movement and provides it with assistance and shelter.
“These are not foot soldiers but the most senior Hamas operatives outside of Gaza. [They] are actively raising funds and directing operatives to carry out attacks in the present day,” an unnamed source told the Telegraph.
“The Turkish Government gave in to pressure by Hamas to grant citizenship to its operatives, thereby allowing them to travel more freely, endangering other countries that have listed Hamas as a terror group,” the source said.
Covid drama: French waiter STABBED for turning Afghan man away
for not wearing a mask
27 Aug, 2020
FILE PHOTO © AFP / PHILIPPE LOPEZ
A harrowing assault has shaken France's Le Havre, where a restaurant waiter received a grave stab wound for asking a customer to put his mandatory face mask on before entering a beachfront restaurant.
Wearing a face covering is obligatory in public places across France, but defending the rule, or reminding people about it, may spark a drama such as the one that occurred in the port city of Le Havre this Wednesday.
In the late afternoon, a 29-year-old Afghan man burst into a local restaurant overlooking a serene seaside beach. The visitor – drunk and not wearing a mask – was met by a waiter who “asked him to put one on,” local media reported, citing the police.
The brief altercation was apparently a prelude to violence. The man left the restaurant for a while before returning and stabbing the waiter with a knife.
There were some in the vicinity who could not stand back and watch the waiter bleed, it turns out. An off-duty member of CRS, France’s auxiliary police, intervened and apprehended the knife-wielding assaulter, but was also injured in the confrontation. Both victims were rushed to the hospital, with police saying the waiter's wound was “serious” but not life-threatening. The suspect was arrested by police who launched a criminal investigation.
He isn’t alone in using violence to challenge France’s mask-wearing order. Earlier this month, a Parisian using a launderette said he was beaten by a pair of men with baseball bats after he asked a customer to put on a mask.
In July, a bus driver in the French city of Bayonne was assaulted by a mob after he reportedly demanded that they cover their faces and show their tickets before boarding the bus. The driver was left brain dead, prompting some of his colleagues to refuse to go to work in protest over the brutal attack.
France has recently moved to task riot police with enforcing mask-wearing, after a local spike in Covid-19 cases was reported in Marseille. The news comes as the country's coronavirus tally surpassed 291,000, and over 30,500 people have so far lost their lives due to the pandemic.
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