British activist is slain in D.C. attack

July 11, 2006|Associated Press

WASHINGTON -- A British anti-Semitism activist and aspiring politician was killed in the city's Georgetown neighborhood by robbers who slashed his throat and tried to rape his female companion, police said.

Within three hours of the attack Sunday, police arrested and charged two men, and two other suspects surrendered to police a few hours later.

The four suspects, including a 15-year-old boy, were due in court yesterday afternoon.

Three assailants stabbed and slashed the throat of Alan Senitt, 27, as he and his companion returned home from a movie, police said.

Senitt, a Jewish activist, had moved to Washington last month to volunteer for the potential presidential campaign of Virginia's former governor, Mark R. Warner.

``Our entire team is shocked and heartbroken," Warner said in a statement.

Senitt had joined Warner's PAC on June 19, said Ellen Qualls, a spokeswoman for Warner.

``He wanted to work on our finance team and learn fund-raising and donor relations."

He had worked for Greville Janner, a member of Britain's House of Lords from Prime Minister Tony Blair's Labor Party. He also ran unsuccessfully for a council seat in a London neighborhood.

Three men approached the couple with a gun and a knife, demanding money and valuables, investigators said.

One man grabbed the woman and dragged her down a driveway where he tried to pull off her clothes, said Lieutenant Robert Glover. Two others attacked Senitt.