NATION IN BRIEF
Wednesday, November 22, 2006; Page A11
6 Muslims Call for US Airways Boycott
MINNEAPOLIS -- Six Muslim clerics removed from a US Airways flight said Tuesday that they were victims of discrimination and called for a boycott of the airline.
The imams were removed from the flight to Phoenix on Monday after three of them said their normal evening prayers in the terminal in Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport before boarding, said Omar Shahin, president of the North American Imams Federation. They were among the 150 imams who attended a federation meeting in Minneapolis.
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"The police came and take us off the plane in front of all the passengers in a very humiliated way," Shahin said. "I never felt bad in my life like yesterday. It was the worst moment in my life when I see six imams, six leaders in this community, humiliated."
The Department of Homeland Security's Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties said it has opened an investigation.
US Airways Group Inc. issued a statement saying that it is interviewing crew members and ground workers about what happened.
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· MIAMI -- Federal prosecutors have asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit to reinstate a key terrorism charge against alleged al-Qaeda operative Jose Padilla, contending that a judge erred in finding that it duplicated other counts in the same indictment. U.S. District Judge Marcia Cooke dismissed a charge of conspiring to "murder, kidnap and maim persons in a foreign country." That charge is the only one in the case that carries a potential sentence of life in prison.
· FRESNO, Calif. -- A young Marine who was called home from Iraq to be with his ailing wife just before she died of childbirth complications was arrested on suspicion of murdering his infant son. Authorities said they plan to file charges Wednesday against Robert Quiroz, 20, in the death of his 3-month-old son, Roman. The child died at a hospital of massive blunt-force trauma, authorities said.
· HUNTSVILLE, Ala. -- A fourth teenage girl died and four people remained in critical condition after a crash in which a school bus plunged about 30 feet off an interstate overpass. Officials said that they are investigating how the bus driver managed to escape the vehicle before it went off the highway.
