World Net Daily is reporting that the horror of Christian persecution most often seen in the Middle East appears to have come to the U.S. as authorities in New Jersey arrested 28 year-old Yusuf Ibrahim who allegedly performed the gruesome murder of two men, ages 25 and 27, then buried the bodies in the backyard of a home in Buena Vista Township, New Jersey.
Investigators believe Ibrahim killed the victims with a single gunshot to the chest, then severed their heads and hands, burying the remains in separate graves.
"We allege that the defendant was ruthless and calculating in the manner in which he carried out the killings and attempted to prevent identification of the victims by cutting off their heads and hands before burying their bodies," said New Jersey Attorney General Jeffrey S. Chiesa.
Police reports say the victims were members of the Coptic Christian community in the area with one of the deceased having immigrated from Egypt only four years ago.
Authorities were tipped off to the crime after someone reported suspicious activity in the backyard of a home in Buena Vista, New Jersey where cadaver dogs eventually discovered the bodies.
Ibrahim was linked to the crime when police discovered that he had been seen driving a white Mercedes Benz that belonged to one of the deceased. It was later found abandoned and set on fire in the streets of nearby Philadelphia.
While the report does not indicate a motive, friends of the victims believe the murders could have something to do with religion.
Members of the Coptic Orthodox church were shocked and saddened by the murders.
“It’s a shock," one resident told WABC. "Something like this doesn’t happen to people like that.”
At least not in the United States.
Pamela Geller, who blogs about Islam at Atlas Shrugs, said the murders “appear to have been a ritual killing, religious in nature . . . The victims were Coptic Christians and the murderer was Muslim (and we are painfully aware of the status and treatment of Coptic Christians under Muslim rule in Egypt),” she wrote.
She goes on to connect the grisly details of the killings to a specific passage in the Qur'an which reads: "When thy Lord was revealing to the angels, ‘I am with you; so confirm the believers. I shall cast into the unbelievers’ hearts terror; so smite above the necks, and smite every finger of them!'” – Quran 8:12.”
Ibrahim is facing two counts of murder and desecration of human remains. Bail is set at more than $3 million in cash.
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