Jersey City, USA -- Tense feelings between Coptic Orthodox Christians and Muslims over the mid-January killings of four Egyptian-American Christians in Jersey City seem unlikely to vanish quickly, despite the arrests of two men who authorities say murdered the family to cover up a robbery.
Many Muslims and Copts expressed relief after prosecutors Friday announced the arrests of two convicted drug dealers and said the motive was money, not religion.
Some in the Coptic community said they will withhold judgment until more information comes out or the defendants are convicted. Area Muslims, meanwhile, remain upset after being put on the defensive for the last seven weeks as many Copts and even some national commentators speculated that Muslim extremists were behind the killings.
The arrests, said Mohamed Younef, president of the American Muslim Union, a New Jersey group, "should get people to understand they should not jump to conclusions so quickly and try to accuse before seeing what the facts are is."
The accusations were fueled by rumors that Hossam Armanious, 47, one of the four people killed, had engaged in online arguments with Muslims on a Christian Web site, and by long-standing tensions between Copts and Muslims in Egypt. Copts are a minority in the predominantly Muslim nation, where 21 Copts were killed in rioting five years ago.
At the funeral for Armanious, his 37-year-old wife, Amal Garas, and their daughters Sylvia, 16, and Monica, 9, many mourners yelled that Muslims were responsible. In recent weeks, some members of the Coptic community reported three neighborhood Muslim businessmen to the FBI over alleged involvement in the crime. And Copt leaders decried mistreatment of Christians in Egypt at a neighborhood meeting.
"There was a great hue and cry," Jersey City Mayor Jerremiah Healy said. "It was based on prejudice, hysteria and everything else. Not that I blame these Coptics, apparently they have thousands of years of persecution and they jumped to a short-sighted conclusion."
Yesterday, the U.S. Copts Association, a Washington, D.C.-based group dedicated to raising awareness regarding the plight of the Copts, had posted a statement concerning the arrests on its Web site.
In part, it read: "Throughout our communications with the prosecutor, the FBI, and other officials, we have stressed law enforcement's need to explore all possible options potentially leading to the murderers. As we have demonstrated through public statements and media appearances, we have exercised caution in proscribing a religious motive to the murders."
But at a Feb. 15 press conference in Washington, D.C., the president of that organization, Michael Meunier, said the method of the murders was similar to a means of killing described in the Koran. Meunier also discounted robbery, as well as a vendetta with its roots in Egypt, as motives for the killings. The following day, Meunier issued a statement decrying the slaying of the Armanious family "by Muslim extremists " and calling the family "modern-day martyrs in Islamic fundamentalists' war on Christianity."
Messages left on the group's answering machine yesterday were not returned.
Monir Dawoud, acting president of the American Coptic Association, who had once called on investigators to refer the murders to the hate crimes unit of the FBI, said Friday that his public accusations after the killings had been meant only against "Muslim terrorists" and not against "99.9 percent of Muslims."
"As a Christian, I'm ready to apologize to anybody who thinks his feelings were hurt by our words or our actions," he said.
Dawoud, like many other Copts interviewed since the arrests, said they do not believe that the two men arrested last week were the only killers. Hudson County Prosecutor Edward DeFazio said on Friday that authorities are still investigating the case and looking to talk to other people.
Others said the arrests did not put them completely at ease.
"We feel better now, but it's a mixed feeling," said Jack Jhaly, talking with friends at the El Saria Cafe, a popular Jersey City hangout for Copts. "It could calm the Coptic people down, but everybody's going to wait (for the trial)."
Bishop David, the spiritual leader for the Copts in most of North America, has publicly cautioned against leaping to conclusions about the case before evidence came in, but he said the detailed information made public after the arrests seems less than complete.
"What we asked for was two things: the whole truth and justice," said Bishop David, who like other Coptic bishops uses just one name. "If it is true that this is the whole truth, then everyone is ready to accept it. This will give a lot of peace to our people.
"But a lot of things are not clear yet . It's very difficult to believe that four people were killed just to steal a card to take some money out of an ATM machine. A lot of things need to be explained in more detail."