Abdulla Gaafarelkhalifa
St. Cloud Times
Saturday June 4, 2022
The Minnesota chapter of the Council on American-Islamic
Relations is calling for a transparent investigation into the death of a man
found Monday in a burned car in Waite Park.
The organization held a news conference in St. Cloud on
Friday with the family of the victim, Musa Sabriye.
Waite Park Police Chief David Bentrud spoke with the Times
and confirmed that Sabriye, 33, was the person found dead Monday. Bentrud said
Sabriye was in the front passenger seat of the burned vehicle and that the
investigation is ongoing.
Waite Park police and fire crews were sent to a car fire
around 12:52 a.m. Monday in the 1500 block of Stearns County Road 6 in Waite
Park where they found a vehicle engulfed in flames.
The family said it took days to confirm the identity of the
remains with DNA, according to CAIR.
At the news conference, Mohammed Ibrahim, director of
CAIR-Minnesota, asked for assistance from the FBI in calling the incident a
hate crime. "We do know that hate crime is up in the state of
Minnesota," Ibrahim said, also citing the defacing of a Muslim cemetery in
Farmington in October.
Some of the speakers at the news conference said the
incident was similar to one in 2014 where Ahmed Farah was found dead in a car
engulfed in flames in Owatonna. News reports from the time said that incident
was believed by authorities to be a suicide.
Ibrahim and others at the news conference said they werem
uncomfortable with how long it took to identify the body.
Bashir Omer, who spoke at the press conference, cited a lack
of Somali members of the police department despite the large presence of
East-Africans in Central Minnesota.
According to his family, Sabriye was taking classes to earn
his GED and worked full time at Fulfillment Distribution Center in St. Cloud.
They said he was last seen Sunday.
Bentrud said the Waite Park Police Department is working
with the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, State Fire Marshal and the
Midwest Medical Examiner's Office to learn what happened to Sabriye.
"We will continue to keep his family informed as our
investigation progresses," Bentrud said. "In keeping with Minnesota
law, we will release all public information from our investigation once the
investigation is closed. In the meantime, we appreciate the public’s patience
as the investigation continues."
Abdulla
Gaafarelkhalifa is the education reporter for the St. Cloud Times. Reach him
[email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @AbdullaGaafare1