By BUSHRA JUHI
By BUSHRA JUHI
and HADI MIZBAN
Associated Press
NAJAF, Iraq — An Iraqi-American woman found bludgeoned to death in her California home last week with a threatening note left beside her body was buried in her native Iraq on Saturday. Family members wept uncontrollably by her graveside and her father asked God to exact revenge on those responsible for her death.
A relative called on Iraq’s government to take quick action to press U.S. authorities to reveal the results of the investigation into the killing of Iraqi-born Shaima Alawadi.
A 32-year-old mother of five, Alawadi was found unconscious by her daughter Fatima, 17, in the dining room of the family’s home in El Cajon, one of America’s largest enclaves of Iraqi immigrants. Three days later, she was taken off life support.
No suspects have been identified or apprehended so far. California police have said the note had led investigators to regard the killing as a possible hate crime. Her daughter told a local TV station it read, “Go back to your country, you terrorist.”
The family brought Alawadi’s body from the U.S. to the Shiite holy city of Najaf, south of the Iraqi capital Baghdad, Saturday on a plane sent by Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.
From the Najaf airport, two police cars escorted a pickup truck carrying the casket, draped in an Iraqi flag, to the “Valley of Peace,” a large cemetery where many Shiites prefer to bury their dead. The cemetery is located close to the tomb of Imam Ali, a cousin of Islam’s seventh century Prophet Muhammad and founder of the Shiite faith.
Mourners offered a prayer for Alawadi’s soul at the tomb’s mosque before they took her body into the cemetery for burial.
Relatives, including women clad in black, wept uncontrollably as they watched the burial. Alawadi’s husband, Kassim Alhimidi, and daughter fainted as the body was lowered into the grave.