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Focus on Arabs and Islam
Bishara Bahbah, executive director of the Washington-based United Palestinian Appeal (UPA), had worked late on the evening of June 16. He was the last to leave the fourth-floor offices of UPA just after 7 p.m. About a half-hour later a fire broke out in the UPA offices and a man was seen running from the building. By the time District of Columbia firefighters were able to put out the blaze it had gutted the offices and destroyed files, computer equipment and mailing lists of contributors, the lifeblood of the charitable organization. Bahbah estimates that the fire caused between $60,000 and $100,000 in damage, not counting the lists, on which no price tag can be placed.
The police department's arson squad arrested D.C. resident Andre Francis Richardson, 24, on June 20 in connection with the UPA fire. A police department news release stated that Richardson...