NAJAF, Iraq (AP) — The family of an Iraqi-American woman found bludgeoned to death in her California home last week, with a threatening note left beside her, has brought her body to Iraq for burial.
A plane carrying the Iraqi-born Shaima Alawadi landed Saturday in the Shiite holy city of Najaf, south of Baghdad.
Two police cars escorted a pickup truck carrying her casket, draped in an Iraqi flag, from the airport to the “Valley of Peace,” a large cemetery where many Shiites prefer to bury their dead. It is located close to the tomb of Imam Ali, cousin of Islam’s seventh century Prophet Muhammad and founder of the Shiite faith.
Alawadi, a mother of five, was found unconscious in the dining room of the family’s home in El Cajon, one of America’s largest enclaves of Iraqi immigrants.
