Italy: "What the F--- Are You Looking at? I am a Muslim!"

The suspect and the scene

-Il Tempo

We’ll just call this the latest report from the Milan daily blotter. It is an all-too-familiar story in Italy’s 2nd-largest city, which is also number 1 in crime. The only difference this time is that while the perp is a migrant from Algeria, his victim is also an Arab, a young woman from Morocco who was just minding her own business socializing with friends while awaiting a train back home from Milan’s Pizza  Duomo. According to the complaint, she was sitting on a bench at the Duomo metro stop talking to a friend, also from Morocco, when she was accosted by 27-year-old Mohamed Saidi, from Algeria. The man reportedly approached the victim and asked her what the F she was looking at, also reportedly stating, “I am a Muslim!” before attacking her and leaving her bleeding and scarred.

Reportedly, the man had just been released from custody hours before, after being given an expedited trial for breaking into a car during the early morning hours of July 9,

The article below from Il Tempo is translated by Fousesquawk. According to other news reports from Il Tempo, Saidi punched the woman in the face.

“What are you looking at? I am a Muslim!” Investigation into radicalization of the attacker

“I thought I was going to die. I couldn’t see anything, and the blood kept me from breathing.” The victim, a 22-year-old, originally from Morocco, recounted her story in filing a complaint against Mohamed Saidi, a 27-year-old Algerian, arrested for having attacked and scarred her at the Duomo metro stop in Milan. The young woman recounts her afternoon in the city center: a casual meeting with a co-national in Duomo Square, one hour before the attack. Then a shopping walk in a group, and finally, entering the Duomo station, still in a group. And here, while she was seated with a friend on a bench awaiting the train direct to Comasina, “suddenly, a man I had never seen before addressed me in Arabic and in an intimidating tone exclaimed: ‘What the f— are you looking at?”‘ The 22-year-old answered him in Arabic, explaining that, ” My look was actually directed at my friend.” Saidi, however, did not believe her and shouted a series of scathing insults. The young woman, frightened, asks him to leave and tells him that if he didn’t leave, she would call the police.

The Ros (Carabinieri Special Operative Group) Anti-Terrorism Unit in Milan is conducting checks throughout Europe through Interpol as to “a possible involvement in radicalized circles” on the part of Mohamed Saidi, the 27-year-old Algerian arrested for having attacked and scarred a 22-year-old young woman at the Duomo metro stop. That is how the arrest report by local police reads. A few hours before the attack, Saida had been released from custody with a ban on residing in Milan following an expedited trial held at the Palace of Justice less than one kilometer from Duomo Square. The arrest, which took place a few hours earlier, around 4 am between 8 and 9 July, was for theft from the interior of a car parked in Argentina Square. It was the first time the 27-year-old Algerian, who was listed as having no fixed abode and no criminal record, was documented in our country.