Radical Islam Watch

Chicago: Student made up fake campus attack

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Safia Z. Jilani

A Muslim student who said a masked gunman assaulted her after he wrote anti-Muslim slurs in a women's restroom at Elmhurst College has been arrested for filing a false police report, officials said today.

A week after the incident roiled the small college, Elmhurst Police Chief Steve Neubauer said officers had cited Safia Z. Jilani, 19, of Oak Brook, on a single count of filing a false police report. Filing a false police report is a Class 4 felony, punishable by one to three years in prison.

The announcement -- made jointly by Elmhurst Police, the college and the DuPage County state's attorneys office -- concluded there was no merit to her complaint.

"The totality of all the evidence, and interviews with staff and students at the college ... concluded that this incident never happened," Neubauer said in a phone interview.

Jilani's report followed several weeks of tension on campus that began when some students allegedly called anti-Muslim slurs at students protesting the treatment of U.S. captives at the Guantanamo Bay prison camp.

As officials at the private college affiliated with the United Church of Christ last Friday called the incident a hate crime, hundreds of students rallied to show solidarity with their Muslim peers, who constitute about 25 of the school's 3,300 students.

The college beefed up security, including foot and car patrols by Elmhurst police, and campus security offered to escort Muslim students around the campus.