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Egyptian Coptic Murder Suspect Granted Religious Asylum
LOS ANGELES, March 12 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - An Egyptian immigrant has been granted religious asylum even though authorities in Egypt want him for allegedly committing a crime there.
After being charged with the horrendous murder of a boy in Orange County, California, U.S. immigration officials acknowledged that they never checked with Egyptian authorities about John Ghobrial's criminal background.
With Ghobrial's trial on charges of killing 12-year-old neighbor Juan Delgado, Orange County investigators traveled to Egypt looking for more details about the defendant's journey from a small village in Egypt to the U.S.
They found that their suspect was wanted for molesting his eight-year-old cousin in his hometown three years before the U.S. granted him asylum. Ghobrial allegedly stabbed his cousin repeatedly in the chest and stomach with a penknife.
The boy survived and Ghobrial, a Coptic Christian, indicated in his asylum application that he had no criminal history, claiming that he fled Sohag, Egypt, after "extremist" Muslims pushed him into the path of a train, severing his left arm.
It has been a long-standing Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) policy not to contact the home countries of asylum applicants for fear to put them and their families in jeopardy in their native country.
Nor do they contact home countries for background checks in light of the risks to turned-away immigrants and families if asylum is not granted. Instead, immigration judges base their decisions solely on the testimony of immigrants and reports of human rights abuses in the countries they fled.
Shortly after his release on bail in Egypt, Ghobrial and his brother fled to Greece, then to Mexico and finally to Texas, where they were detained by U.S. immigration authorities.
By his disability, Ghobrial who does not have a job, touched one Orange County family that let him live in a backyard shed, where he struck up a friendship with a sixth-grade student who lived in the neighborhood.
A few days later, neighbors noticed blood leaking from chunks of concrete scattered on front lawns in the quiet residential neighborhood where Ghobrial lived.
Authorities alleged that Ghobrial had carved up the boy's body with a meat cleaver and embedded his limbs in concrete.
Upon learning about the allegations against Ghobrial in Egypt, some residents in the La Habra neighborhood said INS should have done a more extensive review before granting him asylum.
"Immigration should investigate the background of the people they let in this country," said Maria Asturias, who allowed Ghobrial to live in her backyard shed for three weeks before the murder."
"If they had investigated, they wouldn't have allowed him entry, and we could have avoided this horrible tragedy."
INS records show that since 1973, the U.S. has granted asylum to more than 110,000 refugees who claimed fear of persecution because of their religion, nationality, political opinion or social standing.
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