Murdered Muslim teen’s memorial set on fire in Washington

WASHINGTON: The memorial of 17-year-old Muslim teen Nabra Hassanen, who was abducted and murdered after leaving a mosque in Virginia, was vandalised on Wednesday morning in Washington DC, reported Fox 5. 

According to DC Fire department, the memorial on Dupont Memorial Fountain on Connecticut Avenue was set on fire. The fire was later extinguished by fire fighters. 

Jonathon Soloman of South Carolina was arrested in connection with the fire, said DC police. 

The United States Park Police said it did not appear that Soloman was intentionally setting fire to items from Nabra's memorial as he was setting several items from the park on fire. 

Soloman was charged with vandalism.

Nabra was attacked earlier in June after she and several of her friends walking outside a mosque got into a dispute with a motorist in the community of Sterling.

The teen was reported missing by her friends who scattered during the attack and could not find her afterwards.

Her body was later found dumped in a pond. 

During the search for the missing teen, authorities stopped a motorist "driving suspiciously in the area" and arrested the driver, later identified as Darwin Martinez Torres, 22.

Police obtained a murder warrant that charges Torres for her death

The number of anti-Muslim bias incidents in the United States jumped 57 percent in 2016 to 2,213, up from 1,409 in 2015, the Council on American-Islamic Relations advocacy group said in a report last month.

While the group had been seeing a rise in anti-Muslim incidents prior to Donald Trump's stunning rise in last year's presidential primaries and November election victory, it said the acceleration in bias incidents was due in part to Trump's focus on militant groups and anti-immigrant rhetoric.