Arizona man sentenced to 15 years in prison for vandalizing mosque

A man from Arizona has been sentenced to 15 years in prison for vandalizing a mosque in January 2016 and leaving a slab of bacon on its doorstep. The man identified as 37-year-old Michael Wolfe, has been convicted of hate crime for his actions, in the hopes that this punishment would discourage others from committing such crimes against the Muslims.

Wolfe pleaded guilty on Tuesday to criminal mischief to a place of worship in a case considered a felony hate crime. Surveillance videos from the incident show a man with a shaved head and camouflage clothing breaking windows, camera and lights with a machete at the mosque in Titusville, Florida near Cape Canaveral.

Muslims are prohibited from consuming pork products and hate groups have used pork products as a way to defile US mosques, according to the Council on American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR. The Florida CAIR agreed with prosecutors and defense attorneys in determining Wolfe’s sentence, Brown said.

“The Florida Muslim Community is suffering an unprecedented number of hate crimes,” Florida CAIR spokesman Wilfredo Ruiz said in a statement issued on Wednesday. “Multiple mosques and Islamic institutions have been broken into, vandalized, and even set on fire.” Wolfe was also sentenced to 15 years of probation, to be served after his prison sentence, Brown said.

Hate crimes against Muslims are at an all-time high in the US ever since Trump became president in 2016. Strict punishments against the offenders are being given to discourage such actions in the future.

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Posted by fatimaarshad on Dec 7 2017. Filed under Latest News, World. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.