ATLANTA (AP) —
A suspect in a string of 18 stabbings that terrorized people across three states and left five dead was arrested in front of startled passengers at an airport gate as he tried to board a plane for Israel, officials said Thursday.
A judge in Flint, Mich., where the attacks began in late May, signed a warrant Thursday charging Elias Abuelazam, 33, with assault with intent to murder in connection with a July 27 stabbing.
Antwione Marshall, 26, of Flint, the victim of that attack, told The Associated Press that the FBI visited him at 3 a.m. to show him a picture of the man arrested in Atlanta, and he identified him as the assailant.
Marshall said he was going into his apartment building when the assailant approached and asked for help fixing his car. He was stabbed twice when he opened the hood. Three of his organs were cut, and he has a long scar from his chest to his pelvic area.
Marshall said he wants to retaliate but “I’ll let God handle it. Every time I look at my scar, I get angry.”
In Michigan, Genesee County Prosecutor David Leyton said authorities still don’t know the motive. Most victims were black, and police have said the attacks may have been racially motivated, though Leyton said there was no evidence of that.
Atlanta police said they went to Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport at the request of Michigan State Police and paged Abuelazam over the intercom as he waited to board a Delta Air Lines flight to Tel Aviv.
Passengers on that flight said as they arrived in Tel Aviv that he was tense and talking on his cell phone when he was arrested at the boarding gate shortly before takeoff. They said six police officers led him away without incident.
“He was talking on the phone. I didn’t hear what he said,” Romi Shaked, who was on the plane, told The Associated Press. “I just saw him talking to different people and moving around and sitting in different seats.”
Leyton said Abuelazam’s uncle bought him the plane ticket, which cost about $3,000, and is now cooperating with police.
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