Yesterday morning, with his father, Syed Sirazuddiz, recently ill, the son opened up the store - and about an hour later his bound body was found, with a gunshot wound to the head. Police suspect more than one robber.
Here are edited excerpts from stories about three other recent Philadelphia cases, which left four immigrants dead:
July 2008
Couple from Mali fatally shot in their Feltonville store
A July 15 armed robbery that netted only $11 and a bag of T-shirts wound up taking the lives of Amissi Ndikumasabo, 41, and Bintou Soumare, 45, a married couple from Africa. Ndikumasabo died of his wounds immediately, his wife of her injuries 13 days later, the day after her husband was buried back in Mali. She was buried in Philadelphia at the request of her family, which wanted a quick burial in accordance with Muslim custom, a friend said. The couple had been together in Philadelphia for about a decade and opened their Feltonville clothing store about three years ago, moving from a T-shirt stand in Kensington. Police arrested Thomas Foggy, 19, and charged him with murder. A second suspect, Donald Guy, 24, considered armed and dangerous, is being sought by authorities.
June 2008
Working at his 2nd job, immigrant slain in holdup
On June 23, Fassara Kouyate, who came here from Mali in 2000 looking for work and to rejoin an uncle and brother, was killed in a late-afternoon robbery Monday at one of his workplaces, the Lehigh Car Wash, on Broad Street near Lehigh Avenue. Relatives said that Kouyate, 37, an easygoing man who always made people laugh, was shot even though he had complied with the robbers.
"My husband gave them the money," said his widow, Yvonne Woods-Kouyate, 40, on the front steps of their Kensington rowhouse. "They still shot him and took his life."
