An Iraqi woman, who was brutally beaten in her Southern California home last week, was taken off life support on Saturday and died, reported the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR). The 32-year-old mother of five, Shaima Alawadi, had been on life support since Wednesday, after her teenage daughter found her unconscious in the living room of their home in El Cajon in San Diego County. Lieutenant Mark Coit of the El Cajon police said, “During the initial stages of this investigation, a threatening note was discovered very close to where the victim was found.” Authorities would not detail what the note contained, but the daughter reported that it threatened the family to return to Iraq and referred to them as “terrorists.” To CNN affiliate KGTV, Fatima Al Himidi, the daughter, said, “A week ago they left a letter saying, ‘This is our country, not yours, you terrorists.’ So my mom ignored that, thinking (it was) kids playing around, pranking. And so the day they hurt her, they left it again and it said the same thing.”
Executive Director of CAIR’s San Diego chapter Hanif Mohebi reported that the family came to the United States from Iraq in the mid-1990s. He does not know when they moved to El Cajon, which is one of the nation’s largest Iraqi communities. Alawadi and her husband have three daughters and two sons. The oldest is 17 and the youngest is 8. Fatima Al Himidi reported that nothing was stolen from the home, which led her to believe the attack on her mother was a hate crime. Authorities are exploring all aspects of the investigation. Coit said, “Evidence thus far leads us to believe this is an isolated incident.”
