WORLD / Africa
Egyptian among Virginia shooting victims
(AP)
Updated: 2007-04-20 10:01
CAIRO, Egypt - Graduate student Waleed Mohammed Shaalan was planning on
bringing his Egyptian family back to Virginia Tech but a rampaging gunman
prevented that. The young man lost his life but was credited Thursday
with acting to save a fellow student.
Graduate student Waleed Mohammed Shaalan, right, one of the victims of
the Virginia Tech massacre, is seen with his wife Amira in this undated
wedding photo. Shaalan, a native of the Nile Delta town of Zagazig, had
gone to Virginia last year to study for a Ph.D. in civil engineering and
was hit by three bullets, including one in the head, while in a classroom
building, according to Egypt's state-run Middle East News Agency. [AP]
The day before Monday's massacre, Shaalan called home and said he
intended to visit Egypt next month and then return to Virginia with his
wife and 15-month-old son who had been living in Egypt, his parents said
Thursday.
The family got another call two days later. The Egyptian Embassy in
Washington told them Shaalan had been one of the 32 victims in the
deadliest school shooting in modern U.S. history.
"I talked to him over the internet Sunday," his mother Saadiya
Abdel-Mageed Ali said in a soft and anguished voice. "He asked me to move
closer to the Web camera so he can see my face better. 'I want to see
your face mama!' he kept saying."
Shaalan, 32, had been at Virginia Tech since August studying for a Ph.D.
in civil engineering. He was ambitious, saying he wanted to follow in the
footsteps of Ahmed Zewail, an Egyptian who won the Nobel prize for
chemistry in 1999, said his father, Mohammed Shaalan, 65.
"I am talking to you now and I am still in disbelief. I lost the most
precious person in my life," Mohammed Shaalan told The Associated Press
by telephone from his home in the Nile Delta town of Zagazig. "He used to
tell me that he wants to be someone like Nobel winner Ahmed Zewail."
Randy Dymond, a civil engineering professor, said Shaalan was credited
with distracting gunman Cho Seung-Hui to save the life of a fellow
student.
Dymond, who attended a service for Shaalan Thursday, said the Egyptian
was in the first classroom Cho attacked and was badly wounded. Cho
returned to the room twice to search for signs of life.
During one of those incidents, a second student who was uninjured, was
playing dead. When Shaalan noticed Cho making a move to shoot the
student, the Egyptian made a "protective movement to basically decoy the
killer into thinking it was him making any kind of sound instead of the
survivor," Dymond said.
Dymond declined to give the name of the student who survived, but said
the student wanted him to tell the story "so that the family of Waleed
understands the sacrifice."
Shaalan's mother broke down when she heard Dymond's account.
"He was trying to save someone else?" she said repeatedly.
Dymond said Shaalan's body was taken to a Blacksburg mosque Thursday
afternoon so classmates, teachers and friends could say goodbye before it
was sent to Egypt for burial.
Egyptian newspapers published photographs of Shaalan's wedding. His wife
Amira, 28, is also an engineer, Al-Ahram newspaper reported. She wore an
intricately decorated white gown and veil, clutching a bouquet of pink
flowers. Shaalan planned to bring Amira and his son, Khaled, to Virginia
in May, his parents said.
"Why was he killed? What did he do? What is his guilt? He just wanted to
continue his studies and obtain a Ph.D. He wanted to be unique in his
field," said Mohammad Shaalan, a retired government official. "I can only
say that a man's life is in God's hands. Thanks be to God."
Shaalan obtained his bachelor and master's degrees in civil engineering
from Zagaziq University. He worked at a government research center before
he receiving a scholarship to study at Virginia Tech.
"He was the simplest and nicest guy I ever knew," Fahad Pasha, Shaalan's
roommate, said on the Web site of the Muslim Students Association at
Virginia Tech. "We would be studying for our exams and he would go buy a
cake and make tea for us."
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