US slams killing of Iraqi woman, hate crime probed

California police said Monday they are probing the fatal beating of an Iraqi-American woman as a possible hate crime, as the US State Department vowed "no tolerance for wanton acts of violence." Shaima Alawadi, a 32-year-old mother of five, was taken off life support Saturday, three days after her teenage daughter found her unconscious in their home near San Diego following an "absolutely brutal beating." A threatening note was found near the body, which told the family to go back to Iraq and called them "terrorists," according to her daughter Fatima Al Himidi, cited by CNN at the weekend. Jim Redman, police chief of El Cajon, 15 miles east of San Diego, said Monday that a window in the house the victim shared with her husband and children had been broken, and confirmed that a note was found near her body. "Based on the contents of this note, we are not ruling out the possibility this may be a hate crime," he said. "At this time we are not revealing the contents of the note, but it was threatening in nature." But he added: "I want to stress there is other evidence in this case that we are looking at, and the possibility of a hate crime is just one of the aspects of this investigation. "We are still in the very early stages of this investigation and have not drawn any conclusions at this point," he added, calling the beating "an isolated incident." The family reportedly came to the United States from Iraq in the mid-1990s. The dead woman's daughter said at the weekend that the note had been left a week previously. "A week ago they left a letter saying, 'This is our country, not yours, you terrorists,'" she told CNN affiliate KGTV. "So my mom ignored that, thinking (it was) kids playing around, pranking. "And so the day they hurt her, they left it again and it said the same thing." In Washington, the State Department voiced "heartfelt condolences" to the victim's family, describing her as "an Iraqi-American woman who died .. following an absolutely brutal beating." "We understand that US law enforcement authorities are investigating all aspects of this horrific crime and taking all possible steps to bring the perpetrators to justice," said State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland. "As part of the investigation the authorities are continuing to search for motives behind this attack, but the United States has no tolerance for wanton acts of violence like this," she said. In Baghdad, Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari said: "The government has ordered to transport her body ... from California to Baghdad," giving no further details.