A Muslim student who confessed to faking two assaults on campus in September was charged with two counts of false reporting Thursday by the Maricopa county attorney’s office.
Police reports released by ASU police Thursday revealed that political science senior Ahmad Saad Nasim has a history of reporting hate crimes.
Nasim claimed to have been the victim of two separate attacks, the first in Lot 59 on Sept. 13 when Nasim said he was attacked by three white men as they chanted “Die, Muslim, die.”
A background check was ordered when police became suspicious after finding Nasim in a Hayden Library bathroom Sept. 26 with a plastic bag tied around his head and the word “Die” written on his chest and forehead. The police at UA, where Nasim attended school until 2000, turned over two reports filed by him.
According to the police reports, in 1999 Nasim claimed he received threatening phone calls at his job and in his dorm room from a man saying, “This is your last day, today.” Nasim did not save the messages and no suspects were found.
A year later, Nasim told police that somebody hacked into his Web site and wrote racial slurs under pictures. He also said he received a message on his answering machine that said, “Go home you filthy foreigners.”
Nasim told police he had no evidence because he had immediately changed the Web site and his aging answering machine automatically erased messages.
Nasim did not return repeated phone calls Thursday.
He told officers he lied about the incidents at ASU because he was upset by the way Muslims were being treated after the Sept. 11 attacks.
ASU spokesman Keith Jennings said the University will not press charges against Nasim.
According to police reports, a search of the archives at Arizona Daily Wildcat, UA’s newspaper, found Nasim had authored at least 37 letters to the editor since July 1998. The letters included his opinions on things ranging from the difficulties single mothers face to U.S. involvement in the Middle East. His last letter was written following his alleged attack in Lot 59.
Reach Lauren Carney at lauren_carney@hotmail.com.
