Muslim college student who claimed Trump supporters attacked her on subway busted for filing false report
A Muslim student who said she was harassed on the subway by drunken, hate-spewing white men shouting “Donald Trump!” found herself behind bars Wednesday after telling cops she made the whole story up.
Yasmin Seweid, 18, joined a growing list of local and national alleged hate crime victims when she told cops that she was taunted Dec. 1 on the No. 6 train by three men who called her a terrorist and tried to snatch her hijab off her head while straphangers did nothing but watch.
But Seweid finally broke down and admitted to detectives that it was all a big lie.
“Nothing happened, and there was no victim,” a police source said.
Seweid claimed straphangers stood by and did nothing while the trio mocked her and tried to tear the religious garb from her head. Seweid even provided police a description of the suspects, one of whom cops at one point thought they spotted on video following her when she got off the subway at Grand Central Terminal.
For a while, police believed inconsistencies in her story to be nothing more than typical lapses by someone who was traumatized. The doubts increased when detectives could not find witnesses or any significant video. She left home and was reported missing on Thursday — only to turn up safe and sound on Friday. Suspicion went through the roof.
Albert Kahn, an attorney for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said the twist in Seweid’s case shouldn’t take away from the legitimate claims of bias and harassment against Muslims.
Days after Seweid’s false report, an MTA worker wearing her uniform and a hijab was harassed by a passenger who called her a terrorist, and told her to “go back to your country.”
Officials say there’s been a spike in the number of hate-inspired crimes in New York since Trump was elected President. According to police statistics, reported hate crimes in the city more than doubled last month — with more than 43 cases, compared with just 20 in November 2015.
It was not immediately clear why Seweid lied to the police — and the media — about such a sensitive topic.