A Crack In The Wall

Rezai Karim was worried about being deported—until he was attacked with a butcher’s knife. It may help him legally stay in the U.S.

- Max Kutner

On a cloudy evening in August, Rezai Karim and his girlfriend were swimming in the pool outside of their new home in Roanoke, Virginia, when it started to rain. They headed inside, still damp, and made their way upstairs to their third-floor apartment. As they opened their front door, a man appeared behind them and forced his way inside. “Allahu Akbar!” he shouted, then slashed them with a butcher’s knife. “The next thing I remember,” Karim says, “is that I’m on the floor.”

The now-34-year-old software engineer managed to stand up and wrestle the attacker off his girlfriend, and the couple bolted downstairs and out into the rain. The assailant followed, but then sprinted away into the night. “I was screaming, ‘Somebody stop him!’” Karim says.

It was only when the man was gone that Karim realized he was bleeding—from his neck, his shoulder, his back, his face. Soon, he and his girlfriend, who had a deep gash on her leg, collapsed on the pavement, where they stayed until the neighbors called an ambulance.

It was their first day in their new home.  

Some three months later, local authorities have turned their investigation over to the FBI. The suspected attacker, Wasil Farooqui, is in custody and was scheduled to undergo a psychiatric evaluation, but CBS News and CNN reported that the FBI had been tracking Farooqui for possible ties to radicalism. A spokeswoman for the bureau declined to comment to Newsweek, citing the ongoing investigation.