Last month, a Muslim professor at Indiana State University claimed that he had received a series of threatening, anti-Muslim emails and was attacked while entering his campus office.
Azhar Hussain, 56, assistant professor of aviation technology, reported the threatening emails on March 8, and the physical attack on March 24. He told police he had been attacked from behind, had not seen his attacker, and no words were exchanged.
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Police investigated the alleged hate crimes and thanks to their excellent detective work (and no doubt finely-tuned BS detectors) they concluded that Hussain had — get this — made it all up. He was arrested on Friday and charged with obstruction of justice — a felony — and misdemeanor harassment, according to Terre Haute’s Tribune-Star.
“Based upon the investigation, it is our belief that Hussain was trying to gain sympathy by becoming a victim of anti-Muslim threats, which he had created himself,” said Joseph Newport, ISU’s chief of police.
“It is extremely unfortunate that this situation caused undue concern on other members of the ISU community,” said Newport, who also noted campus crime alerts had been sent out following the first email and the alleged attack.
ISU Police were assisted in the investigation by the Cybercrime and Investigative Technologies Section of the Indiana State Police and ISU’s information technologies security engineer. During the investigation, ISU Police collaborated with the local FBI office and the Vigo County Prosecutor’s Office.
Investigators were able to track the computers from which the emails originated and uncovered evidence to charge Hussain with sending the emails himself, according to the university news release.
ISU announced on Friday that Hussain would not be reappointed to his faculty position beyond the 2017-18 academic year and that “dismissal proceedings against Hussain would be started in accordance with university policy.”
He was booked into Vigo County Jail and scheduled for and appearance in Vigo County Superior Court on Monday. Bond was set at $10,000 cash.
There have been dozens of provably fake hate crimes since the election of Donald Trump. See Fakehatecrimes.org for the complete list.
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