A Saudi Arabian national and former student at Ball State University has been deported after being arrested in March for the alleged violent threatening of shoppers at an Indiana Goodwill store unless they converted to Islam.
Khalid Sulaiman Bilal, 24, was arrested on March 25, accused of threatening people in a Muncie, Indiana, Goodwill store. Police said Bilal was “forcibly” trying to convert shoppers to Islam, Fox 59 reported.
Bilal, charged with 15 crimes, reportedly threatened shoppers, resisted arrest, attacked police, and choked a store clerk, the Muncie Star Press reported.
In March, Fox 59 described the incident vividly:
Bilal allegedly entered the store and began forcefully trying to convert people to Islam while claiming to be the Prophet Muhammad and trying to place his hands on them. He struck and strangled an employee and told her he would kill her if she didn’t convert to Islam. He attacked responding officers, breaking one of the officer’s hands and repeatedly kicking the other. During the scuffle, Bilal yelled “Allahu Akbar,” a phrase meaning “God is greater” and commonly used by Islamic radicals before a violent attack, according to an affidavit filed by Homeland Security.
After a Department of Homeland Security investigation, Bilal was deported.
Upon his deportation, Eric Hoffman, the Delaware County chief deputy prosecutor, recommended that the battery charges and other charges filed against Bilal be dropped because “the U.S. Department of Homeland Security has deported the defendant back to his native country of Saudi Arabia.”
Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston or email the author at igcolonel@hotmail.com.
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