Nidra Poller gives some important information in the New York Sun about the Armanious family press conference yesterday:
WASHINGTON – Relatives of Hossam Armanious – who along with his wife and two daughters was savagely murdered last month at Jersey City, N.J. – said at a press conference here yesterday that the family was probably killed because of their religious beliefs….
The Armanious relatives yesterday spent the day in meetings with members of Congress, and FBI and Justice Department officials.
In a prepared statement read by Michael Meunier, a representative of the U.S. Copts Association, the relatives of the Armanious family rejected several theories about the motive for the grisly murders.
It was not an old country vendetta, they said. Also, there was no mysterious trip to Egypt last year made by Hossam. As for robbery, the relatives said the family had no hidden wealth, just a mortgage and credit line, and that they kept their cash in the bank….
The most probable method and motive for the slayings, the relatives said, is a ritual murder for religious reasons.
Though the Coptic tattoo on 16-year-old Sylvia Armanious’s wrist was not slashed as had been initially reported, other details of the execution-style killings do follow a Koranic prescription, Mr. Meunier said.