Saudi scholarship students’ troubles in the United States

Social networking sites are replete with news of accidents involving Saudi scholarship students in America including instances of murders, harassment and break-ins.
Take the case of Raed Al-Baqshi, 28, who was found dead in his bed. Al-Baqshi had been studying electrical engineering at Michigan State University for the last three years. Initial investigations showed the absence of criminal involvement with the possibility of a heart attack.
Al-Baqshi went missing last Wednesday, so his friends set out on a search for him. They tried contacting him and when they went to his house, they found the door locked. They eventually called the police who discovered Al-Baqshi lying on his bed lifeless.
Police took the body into their custody to ensure there was no tampering with incriminating evidence such as a murder weapon. However, this has been ruled out and now they are working on completing their investigations and coordinating with appropriate authorities to repatriate the body to the Al-Ahsa governorate.
Meanwhile, the Saudi Embassy in Washington is following up on the case to determine the cause of death, whether natural or otherwise, and has promised to finalize the procedures for sending the body home.
The case of Al-Baqshi came less than 24 hours after an American court in Iowa sentenced another Saudi student to 25 years in prison on charges of breaking into the home of an American woman last year and attacking her.
The media published the details of the story along with the court ruling of the Saudi student being convicted of a hold up and attack in the first degree with the intention of sexually attacking the woman. The court also ruled that the student will be deported to Saudi Arabia on completing his sentence.
According to court documents, the accused is studying in North Iowa. The papers show that after he had destroyed his car on Dec. 31 last year, he walked to his house which was nearby. When the woman opened the door to help him, he assaulted her but she was able to escape and take refuge with one of her neighbors. The police were called in and the man arrested.
Over the past week, Los Angeles police have been investigating yet another case involving a Saudi scholarship student, Abdullah Al-Qadi whose case was described as sad but not unusual. A 28-year-old youth is accused of the murder with the LA police confirming that he has confessed to his crime saying that after killing Al-Qadi, he threw the body out in the desert. He also said that there were other people involved but that it was he who kidnapped the victim, murdered him and hid the body in the desert.
The Saudi media also followed up on the case of Abdullah Al-Qadi and newspapers continued to carry reports about him until his body reached Madinah where he was buried.
This case coincided with another involving two Saudi students — Marwan Hinawi, 20, who ran his sports car over his compatriot Mohammad Al-Badi, 22, in the parking lot of their residence on Oct. 18 resulting in the latter’s death.
According to reports in the US media, prosecutors are investigating the case and Hinawi’s lawyer will seek bail. He will however, have to hand over his passport to the police to prevent him from fleeing the country while the investigation is on.
Police in Arizona State told media sources that four cases of sexual harassment in a residential complex were reported in separate incidents over the past two weeks.
They said two individuals were arrested in the case, one a 23-year-old Saudi and the other an American student with others undergoing investigation.
American media sources said the police told them of a Saudi student’s arrest on Sept. 13 for attempting to attack one of the girls sexually. However, the accused in his defense said that he was friends with the young woman and that there was no violence involved.