David Fremd, a 54-year-old local businessman, was attacked in the western Uruguayan city of Paysandu, on the border with neighboring Argentina.
One of his three sons was also injured in the attack, but his wounds are reportedly not life-threatening.
. . .
Sergio Gorzy, the president of Uruguay’s Jewish umbrella organization, told Subraydo that Fremd was stabbed 15 times and that the attacker mentioned at one point in the interrogation that his act was targeting the Jewish community.
I translated this Uruguayan TV news report for subtitling: The man who chased after the assassin clearly states what the killer told him (2:53 minutes into the video),
Witness: I chased him for 3 blocks, almost 4, and got him, and he told me “Let me go because when I testify they’ll let me go.” Who knows why he said that. And that’s when he said it was because of the Muslim religion. Yes, I grabbed him by the back of his collar. And he wanted to escape, so the harder he tried, the harder I held on.
So he told me that, and he told me “if you knew what they had done to me you would have done worse.” As if he had been mistreated. He told me they discriminated against him because they were Jews.
He also told me he was with al-Qaeda, and that he had bombs and all that.
Reporter: And he said all that?
Witness: Yes.
Reporter: Was he calm?
Witness: Yes, calm, very calm. He knew what he had done, he was aware of what he was saying.
Reporter: When you testified, did you mention that?
Witness: Yes, exactly what he told me.
Reporter: What else did he say?
Witness: He implied his religion commanded him that he had to sacrifice a Jew, so he’d go free.
Following the arrest, the spokesman for the Uruguayan authorities stated that Abdullah Omar, the perpetrator, would not admit that he was motivated by religion.
Omar faces charges of committing a premeditated homicide, a hate crime on religious motives and personal injury against the son of the deceased.
Omar’s birth name is Carlos Peralta, age 35, who converted to Islam. He had been suspended from his teaching job in 2013 pending an investigation on charges of child molestation. Subrayado reports that his Facebook page contained Islamist materials.
Authorities determined that Peralta/Omar acted alone,
Earlier on Thursday, Judge Fabricio Cidade found Peralta guilty of stabbing businessman David Fremd late on Tuesday in Paysandu, near the border with Argentina. The judge told the El Telegrafo newspaper that Peralta would be sent to a psychiatric hospital for an evaluation ahead of sentencing.
“He consistently talked about the religious motivations but did not once recognize committing the crime,” the judge told the local paper. “He said his actions were in the hands of Allah.”
Mr. Fremd was buried at the Jewish Cemetery of La Paz, Uruguay.
