At a news conference Friday at the Montgomery County Courthouse, Jawad F. George, attorney for the Washington-based al Faruqi Memorial Committee, which is administering the reward, said the slayings were "political assassinations of international significance." He said he was concerned that the FBI had not taken a more active role in the investigation.
George and others at the news conference - including Islamic leaders and former students and colleagues of the Faruqis at Temple University - said they believed that the Faruqis were killed by extremists from either within the Islamic community or from the Jewish community.
A May 6 article reprinted from the Village Voice, in which an official of the militant Jewish Defense League is described as talking about "silencing a prominent Palestinian-American professor," was distributed to reporters.
Oscar Vance, chief of the Montgomery County detectives, and Stephen Ott, Cheltenham police chief, also attended the news conference, but they declined to give any details of their investigation.
In the months since the killings, threatening phone calls have been received by some of the Faruqis' former students at Temple and by prominent members of the Islamic community, George said.
A toll-free number, 1-800-654-0354, has been set up by the memorial fund to receive information.
