The two apartment-mates of Abdulsalam Al-Zahrani, the Saudi national and doctoral studentcharged with stabbing to death Richard Antoun, a Binghamton University professor emeritus, said the suspect was (as Press Connects reports) "confrontational, argumentative and 'acted like a terrorist.'"
Al-Zahrani is a graduate student in cultural anthropology, while Antoun, an expert on comparative religion, is described as a "gentle man dedicated to dispelling stereotypes about different cultures."
Souleyman Sukho, a Senegalese doctoral student at BU who was one of Al-Zahrani's apartment-mates, stated he "'came at me with a knife . . . asked me if I was afraid of dying . . . behaved like a terrorist . . . . would open his door and would be screaming on the phone . . . [and] claimed he was persecuted.'"
The other apartment-mate, Luis Pena, a master's-degree student at BU, related that Al-Zahrani would abruptly exclaim "I just feel like destroying the world" and would "make weird remarks."
The motives for Antoun's murder remain to be uncovered.
Finally, the question of whether under the circunstances BU Pres. Lois DeFleur should have locked down the campus is noteworthy.