Kassim Alhimidi to be held without bail over killing of Shaima Alawadi, whose death was initially believed to be hate crime
The husband of an Iraqi-American woman whose killing was initially believed to be connected to a hate crime has pleaded not guilty to murdering her during a domestic dispute.
The death of Shaima Alawadi last March drew international attention after the couple's teenage daughter said she found a note by her mother's bludgeoned body that read: "Go back to your country, you terrorist."
The victim's husband, Kassim Alhimidi, appeared briefly by video monitor in a superior court in El Cajon, a suburb of San Diego, on Tuesday after being charged with murder in the case. He was ordered to be held without bail after prosecutors argued that he had recently travelled to Iraq and was a flight risk.
Alawadi, 32, had left Iraq in the early 1990s after a failed Shia uprising and lived in Saudi Arabian refugee camps before moving to the US.
Detectives found documents in Alawadi's car indicating that she had planned to seek a divorce, according to an affidavit that was inadvertently given to a local reporter.
In addition, the affidavit showed the couple's 17-year-old daughter was distraught over a pending arranged marriage to her cousin in Iraq and was found in a car with another man in November 2011.
El Cajon is a conservative city of 100,000 people 15 miles from San Diego that has become popular with Iraqi immigrants. The city is home to 40,000 Iraqis, the second largest such community in the US after Detroit.