Wichita restaurant burns down in what owners believe was a hate crime

Source: Wichita Eagle

A 2:10 a.m. phone call was the alarm that woke up Ranya Taha and Bashar Mahanweh as their restaurant was overtaken by flames in a two-alarm fire — a fire that they believe may have been a hate crime.

“We were first asked if we had anyone who would want to hurt our business, and we said no,” Taha said. “There was a small incident on a window awhile ago with graffiti, but we just covered it up and moved on. It was three months ago, and we didn’t think bad of it.”

Now Taha is not so sure if the Nov. 1 fire was just an accident and if the graffiti was just a coincidence.

After the fire destroyed their Jordanian restaurant, Petra Mediterranean Restaurant, and left nothing but charred contents inside, they took a walk around their building.

Read more: http://www.kansas.com/news/local/article182191451.html